Born To Battle
by Illusion-Factory
Summary: Everyone loves a good pokemon battle. So let's get down to it! A series of one shots based on and around battling. Rated T for language and mild violence. Now accepting OCs.
1. Swellow vs ?

Disclaimer: Pokemon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

EDITI realized, that as my characters evolved, I needed to go re-write some earlier chapters, so I read through from the beginning and decided the first chapter especially needed an over-haul. So enjoy. I'll be editing and rewriting some parts of chapters 1, 2 and 5. That is all for now. /EDIT

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It was a nice day in the Ilex forest, it was passably warm, not too cold and not too hot. The sky, what little bits and pieces of it could be seen through the densely packed trees, was a lovely shade of bright blue. A nice breeze that managed to make it past the thick rows of trees ruffled the long grass on the sides of the forest path where several trainers were working with their pokemon, battling the rag-tag groups of bug and water type pokemon that called the forest home. The old man had been kept busy for most of the day, teaching prospective trainer's pokemon the move headbutt, and now trees lining the path bore evidence of the move's practice. It was in a section of grass that wasn't quite tall enough to house wild pokemon, a few steps off the beaten path that two brothers were facing each other down.

"You sure you're ready for this little brother?" One asked the other, hands nonchalantly stuffed in his pockets. His black and gray pokemon standing with all four paws spread out, giving him the advantage to move quickly. The other trainer growled, annoyed.

"Don't act so high and mighty, Mike, you're only five minutes older than me." His pokemon was a dark navy bird and it cawed in agreement with its trainer. Clutching against the ground with its sharp talons, the Swellow pushed itself into the air beginning a graceful arc up to the tree tops. Both brothers watched its ascent, the gray pokemon crouched, slightly bending his legs and balancing lightly on his paws. He didn't need his trainer to tell him that he would have to be fast, the swallow was currently out of his reach, but that would change. He would need to dodge the pokemon's attacks while quickly counter-attacking back. The swallow reached the peak of its climb and paused for a moment, awaiting the attack order. The swellow's trainer narrowed his eyes at his brother, not even bothering to glance at his pokemon, he opened his mouth to issue the first order of the battle.

"WWWaaaaiiiitttt!" A shout snapped through the tension filled air and caused all four combatants to look at the source. A small brown and white feathered bird was dashing as fast as its webbed feet could carry it toward them, it cut across the battle field, wailing as loud as it could, disappearing into a clump of bushes. The elder brother raised an eyebrow. And seconds later the mystery of who had actually yelled 'wait' was solved. Several young trainers raced after the Farfetch'd, they didn't look like they had been training for more than a few months at most, weeks at least. But all three of them sprinted across the makeshift battle field and dived into the bushes after the fleeing pokemon. The sounds of the chase soon faded into the afternoon.

"Bluster use aerial ace!" The younger brother wasted no time in beginning the battle after the small distraction had gone. The large navy blue bird dove lighting quick toward its opponent. Angling itself so that its beak slashed across the gray furred chest, the Swellow made to swoop back into the sky out of range. The opposing trainer, Mike, aimed to not let that happen. He snapped his orders out to his pokemon as quickly as he could lest the Swellow escape into the sky.

"Bite quickly! Don't let 'em get away!" Powerful jaws clamped heavily around the Swellow's right wing and with a flick of the head, the bird was ripped backward and thrown heavily to the ground. The Swellow rolled head over heels back from the force of the throw, it dug its talons into the ground and skidded several feet, opening its wings to slow itself down, tucking its head into its white feathered chest as its opponent bounded forward, fanged jaws open for a follow-up bite attack.

"Confuse him with double team Bluster." Bluster's trainer, Connor, a boy the exact same age as his opponent, but as mentioned, unfortunately five minutes younger, was already moving for a defensive measure. With a flap of the wings one swellow turned into several. The gray muzzle snapped closed around the neck of a swellow that disappeared as soon as the jaws began to close, leaving the attacking pokemon momentarily befuddled. The opponent leaped back, landing on its four black paws a short distance away to eye the multiple Swellows angrily. Mike knew the perfect counter and took little time to implement it.

"Odor Sleuth, Pirate! Find the real one and then go for another bite attack." The yellow eyes narrowed, closed and the gray muzzle pointed to the sky and sniffed deeply. The swellows cawed and shifted before launching themselves into the air heeding their trainer's call.

"Like we're gonna wait around for that! Steel wing, Bluster!" The multiple swellows' wings glowed white and the large bird dove back toward the gray and black canine. The yellow eyes snapped open, just as the bird was about to strike, the target dove to the side, pivoted on a paw and, jaws gaping, launched itself toward the left most swellow. The Swellow had no time to dodge as the eighty-one pound pokemon slammed into it, teeth sinking into the feathered wing joint. The fake swellows disappeared in the attack and the real one beat its remaining wing frantically against the ground.

With a flick of the head, the navy bird was sent tumbling head over tail into a conveniently placed tree. It struggled to regain its footing, finally managing to stand, one wing dragging weakly on the ground, not broken but definitely not useable. Connor was far from letting this match be over. Bluster might not have the advantage of the skies anymore, but he had plenty of other skills yet to be used. And there was no way either Connor or Bluster was just going to give up, not to Mike.

"Bluster! Come on! Quick attack, we got to stay in this!" The Swellow puffed itself up and cawed as it gathered the strength for the frontal assault. It quickly threw itself at the opposing pokemon, causing a slight bit of damage, Pirate had been hit with a strong aerial ace and the metal wing had done some damage to the mouth that had caught it but the opponent, frustratingly, easily brushed off the quick-attack. Mike smirked, time to finish the fight. Bluster was, after all, tired one more good strong attack and he'd go down.

"Alright, let's finish this Pirate! Fire Fang!" He called confidently. The white teeth became framed in flames as the gray and black pokemon leaped at the swellow. The tired out bird type had no energy left to dodge much beyond attempting to jump backward. Despite the attempt, the teeth once again clamped onto the swellow's wing. The flames flickered out burning the feathers on the wing and singing the ones on the neck and chest. The swellow cried out, stumbled further back, fell and was unable to muster the strength to climb to its feet. Connor clenched his fists angrily but was forced to recall Bluster to its pokeball and admit defeat.

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Author's Notes:

Welcome to the wonderful world of _Born to Battle_, a series of one-shots that are centered around pokemon battling, of any kind. Therefore, a battle a chapter is guaranteed. I have a small group of original trainers I will introduce as the series progresses. The main characters that the series revolves around are three trainers, two of which are introduced in this chapter, the third will be in the next chapter.

Born to Battle was originally and still is a way for me to work on and improve my writing, thus many of the early chapters may be reworked time and again. Just think of BTB as always being in a state of construction. BUT! To make it interesting to YOU, the reader; I've decided to add a couple things:

Let's play a game! Its old school too: Who's that Pokemon? Name the second pokemon in this battle. In up-coming battles I won't directly name the pokemon but leave physical descriptions, and attack clues as to its identity. In the review for the chapter guess the pokemon and in the author notes for the next chapter, I'll post the pokemon name. There's no prize…sorry, but I figured it would be more interesting. A bit of audience participation if you will.

If you have an oc, pokemon team, or just want to see my take on a pokemon battle, pm me the details and I might use them in a chapter, be warned, your oc might not make it into a chapter and even then might not walk away the victor. I will give credit for someone's oc if I use them. See chapter 6+7 for more details.

Well, that's all. Hopefully this will be fun for everyone…or at least me. Since my life has picked up, I can no longer keep up with my original once a week up-date plan. So it'll be more like once a month. But this way, I get to read over each one and not feel so rushed to get 'em out. So hopefully, though the quantity has gone down, the quality will go up! So consider this me being off hiatus(finally)…albeit tentatively. ~Illusion-Factory


	2. Battle on the Open Sea

Disclaimer: Pokemon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Oh and apologies to any of you who like fishing.

EDIT So I went back and rewrote the capture battle at the end of this chapter like I always meant to. /EDIT

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"Ohhhh mmmmyyyy ggggwwwwaaaadddd! This. Is. The most boring sport ever invented!" The girl waved one hand wildly around in the air, the other was clutched around a battered fishing pole. "Who, I ask you, who would want to do this for _fun_? That old man was crazy I tell you! Fishing guru my ass, he just wanted to pawn this piece of shit off on me. And I, stupidly, took it! I might have known you can't catch anything worthwhile with this!" The sound of seabirds followed this pronouncement the girl brought her fist down hard, punching her ride on the head. "Are you even listening to me? I'm complaining here!" She opened her mouth to continue berating her ride when the fishing pole in her hands gave a sharp tug. "Fine, you're off the hook!" Jumping to her feet she began to wrestle with the pole and the pokemon, fighting to bring it up.

"Sweet jelly doughnuts! This is it Man O'! I can feel it! This is the big one!" She cracked a feral grin. "Just evolve a wailmer, they said, it'll teach you patience, they said. I Don't Need No Freakin' Patience!" The game of tug o war was ending in her favor. "I just need a. Freakin. Wailord!" She gave a final great tug on the pole and the ocean finally released the pokemon. Our heroine promptly found herself wacked in the face by a magikarp, which slowly slid off and landed flopping on her own pokemon's head.

There were a few moments of silence as she stared at the still flopping magikarp. Then: "AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!" She yanked back her foot and delivered an almighty kick to the magikarp which sent it flying back out to sea, where it landed with a plop.

"No no no no no NO!" The fishing pole had been thrown down and a full blown tantrum was in effect, stamping feet, jumping up and down and hair pulling included. "How hard is it to catch one freakin' wailord! I just want ONE! Just ONE! That's all I need! But Nooooo! The universe is conspiring against me! It doesn't want me to have my own wailord! It wants me to have patience! Well I'll tell ya what you can do with your patience universe! You can stick it up your-whaaa!"

A mistimed jump had resulted in a loss of balance and aided by the wet surface of her pokemon's head, she had slipped and landed flat out on her back. Silence but for the sounds of the wingulls and Pelippers in the distance descended. After a few minutes of this relative quiet her pokemon shook itself, grumbled and prodded her gently with a tentacle.

"Is it me, Man O'? Is that why I can't have my own wailord?" In answer her fishing rod was dumped unceremoniously onto her stomach, causing her to jackknife into a sitting position as the air left her lungs in a hurry. "Fine!" She thumped her pokemon on the head again and leapt to her feet. "I'll keep looking for my wailord, just to prove the universe wrong! I don't need patience!" She struck a dramatic pose. "Man O' War! Head in that general direction!"

She thrust out an arm to point in an arbitrary direction, before collapsing back onto Man O' War's head, arms folded across her chest and fishing pole resting in her lap. "We are going to find another fishing spot. This one sucks." Her pokemon grumbled again, and released a stream of bubbles before ducking under the water so that only the top of his blue and red head with his trainer was showing and then motored off at a leisurely pace.

Four other fishing spots, three tantrums and more magikarp then you could shake a fishing pole at and Man O' War was headed back toward the beach and town, trainer ranting loudly at the birds, the sky, Man O' and anything that moved in the late afternoon sun.

"Freakin' magikarp! How many of those things can there possibly be? I must have caught every single one in existence out the-" The pause was caused by the sudden explosion of water not sixty feet away. Out of the huge fountain of water accompanied by brilliant sparkles came a giant pinkish-purple wailord. It jumped out of the water, sailed right over Man O' War and his passenger, whose jaw had dropped open, and re-entered the water on their other side with a splash. The girl was frozen, clutching at the edge of the top of her pokemon as Man O' War fought to remain upright and above the waves caused by the re-entry. Her shock did not last long.

"Ho, shiz Man O'! Did you see that? This really is it! Don't worry, I got us covered. Go! Bedazzle!" Her hand whipped out and the red and white pokeball was sent soaring into the air, releasing a purple four winged bat in a flash of red light just as the wailord broke the surface for a second time and zeroed in on the crobat. It shot out a jet stream of water at Bedazzle as it arched into the air. The stream of water hit the crobat and sent it spinning before it managed to right itself.

"Be! Giga drain Be! Giga Drain that sucker!" The wailord had already completed its jump and had returned to the water, white crested waves surging outward from the entrance point. Bedazzle was outlined in a faint green glow and underneath the surface of the water, the dark outline of the Wailord was glowing as well. The wailord started thrashing violently around as green globes of energy were transferred from it to the crobat. The once calm sea was now full of huge waves that were battering against Man O' War from all directions. Despite this or really in spite of it, the girl had regained her footing and was laughing as she was showered with sea spray and drenched by the huge waves.

"Yes! This is what I'm talking about!" She screamed over the crashing waves and deep moaning of the wailord. Another stream of water exploded from the sea as the wailord made another desperate attempt to fight the crobat off. "Dodge that Be! And use screech!" The crobat barrel-rolled to the side gracefully, allowing the jet of water to completely pass him by. He tucked all four wings to his small body, as he shot down toward the water, opening them at the last minute to skim the surface. Waiting until he reached the dark shadow of the submerged wailord, Bedazzle opened his mouth and let out a horrible high-pitched squeal. As soon as the wailord began groaning and thrashing in protest, he gave his wings a good hard flap and shot back up into the air. "Good job Be! Now wait for him to break the surface again!" The trainer called, grinning dangerously as her ride was bombarded with fresh waves.

Instead of another water gun counter-attack, three rings of water were shot out of the ocean. Bedazzle managed to dodge the first one but the last two caught him dead-on. There was a tense moment but ultimately the hit barely caused the crobat to pause, as it doggedly kept to the skies above the giant wailord. Circling and waiting for it to break the surface again as per his orders. After a few more failed water gun attacks, where Bedazzle nimbly evaded each one, the female trainer was quickly and ironically losing patience with the cat and mouse game the two pokemon were playing.

"Bedazzle! Let's bring this to a close! Giga drain!" The crobat swooped lower over the water, and more green globes of energy were sucked from the wailord. The wailord had had enough and came crashing out of the cover of the waves for a vicious rollout attack. It was just the opportunity the trainer had been waiting for. At the height of the wailord's jump she threw an ultraball, striking the wailord just behind the first of his fins. The pokemon disappeared in a flash red light, sucked into the ball. The dropping ball was quickly grabbed by the crobat, who flittered over to his trainer and placed the shaking ball into her waiting hands. The tension was high as all three focused their attention on the small ultraball shaking and trembling in the girl's hands. The glowing red button slowly turned white and the wailord was reported as captured.

"YES! Yeah ha!" The girl immediately punched the air with a fist. "I so totally rock!" The crobat gave a displeased squeak. "Uh, I mean _we_ so totally rock!" She quickly amended patting her crobat on the head in apology. "Come on guys, this means we've just got some major kick-ass muscle for our water team! Let's pack it in for realz this time!" She settled down into a cross-legged sitting position on Man O War with her new wailord's pokeball in hand and Bedazzle crouched on her shoulder. Man O' War grumbled angrily and dutifully continued on his way back to town. "And pick up the pace Man O', I wanna be able to shove my new accomplishment in those guys' and the universe's face by dinner time! I caught my own wailord! And its huge! And _shiny_! Prove to everyone that magnificent water trainer Tess don't need no patience to get a wailord."

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Author's Notes:

Who's that Pokemon from last chapter: Mightyena.

And this the first introduction to Tess, she's the third trainer and she's tons of fun to write for.

~Illusion-Factory


	3. Safari Zone: Kanto Region

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

The last chapter didn't have as much Pokémon battle action, so this one will have more, and who needs a trainer to battle anyway?

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The relative quiet of the safari zone in Kanto was shattered. The bushes in one sector were shaking violently and the more timid nidorans and Chansey had long since abandoned the area. The ground itself was trembling from the force of the vibrations as a Kangaskhan stomped its foot heavily against the ground and followed that up with a tail thumping and an angry deep throated growl. The recipient of this threat display reared up on stubby back legs and returned the growl with a throaty bellow, slamming back onto all fours. The Kangaskhan retaliated with a show of teeth and claw and began to circle around its opponent. The gray Pokémon shuffled on short thick legs, keeping the Kangaskhan in its sights at all times. After a few minutes of the circling and odd shuffling dance, both Pokémon came to a halt. A dead silent halt, neither moved not even to breathe, just stared at the other, waiting for the first move.

Suddenly the gray rocky Pokémon lunged forward, head bowed down in a vicious horn attack. The Kangaskhan managed to cross her arms protectively in-front of her stomach pouch and child. But she still ended up taking the brunt of the attack. She slid back across the grass several feet with the opposing Pokémon pushing her all the way before she managed to dig her clawed feet into the ground and halt her retreat. The two Pokémon became locked that way, neither giving way, both straining against the other. The Kangaskhan thumped her tail against the ground again and managed to push the horn attack's momentum to the side. As the other Pokémon found itself freefalling toward the ground, she twirled around and delivered a strong mega punch to the now unguarded side. The Pokémon was knocked halfway across the small clearing, until its progress was halted abruptly by a sturdy tree. The force of the blow caused the tree to crack and part of its roots to become exposed, partially ripped from the ground.

The Pokémon landed on its side but instead of remaining on the ground, it clamored back onto its feet and bellowed again. It dragged its left front foot through the ground pulling up grass and dirt as it pawed at the clearing floor before it threw itself back into an earth rumbling charge. Its own armor-like plates rattling from the momentum it was building up. The Kangaskhan crouched down and braced itself for the on-coming attack. One arm crossed in front of the pouch to protect the small precious baby Kangaskhan, the other pulled back and beginning to glow, readying for a comet punch. She released her punch just as the rock-hard face plate and horn were about to smash into the arm curled around her stomach.

The first punch stopped the charging Pokémon and the second knocked it back up a few paces, but before the Kangaskhan could continue with her assault, the other Pokémon had backed up, raised itself onto its back legs and slammed its front legs against the kangaskhan's chest. Now it was the kangaskhan's turn fly backward from an attack. Digging her feet into the ground, the Kangaskhan managed to slow her backward slide without toppling over. But by the time she had recovered her balance, the stony gray Pokémon was bearing down on her again, head lowered and horn pointed straight at her.

She didn't have time to even lift an arm to protect her youngster before the fast paced horn attack had landed. She was jabbed a full three times before she had the fortitude to bring her arms up to block the oncoming attacks, giving ground the whole way. By now the Kangaskhan had been pushed to the edge of the newly made clearly. Her back was pressed flat against the stone cliff that lurked on the side of the patch of trampled bushes and grass. Instead of retaliating against the show of force that had backed her up against the cliff, the Kangaskhan leaned down to meet the other Pokémon's eyes. Her eyes narrowed and glowed a bright angry red. The other Pokémon upon seeing this seemed to lose its nerve. It backed up unsteadily, allowing room for the Kangaskhan to move away from the cliff and begin to circle it again. By now both combatants were panting with open cuts and bruises covering the Kangaskhan and several new dents in the gray plate armor of the rival. The forest around them looked like a warzone. Tree stumps littered the ground and broken tree trunks lay haphazardly every which way. There were crushed underbrush and flowers that had been trampled by the two titan's battle. Bits of rock and pits in the forest floor covered the ground.

The rival Pokémon shook itself, pawed the ground and raised itself back up onto its hind-legs to slam back to the ground, causing a chunk of the ground to be shot into the air. The gray Pokémon charged this hunk of rock, horn lowered and glowing. The impact shattered the rock and sent smaller boulder sized pieces flying at the mother Kangaskhan. She managed to block the worst hits from her baby, but took five direct hits herself. A shard of rock slipped past her defenses and scored a deep cut on the baby kangaskhan's face. The result was a shocked moment of silence then the baby opened its mouth and began to wail. The mother glanced down at the baby, saw the cut, whipped her head back up to glare angrily at the opposing Pokémon and let out a huge rage filled roar. Her legs crouched and then she sprang into the air, landed and full out sprinted toward the hapless target. Her arm pulled back, fist clenched tightly and glowing. The rival could only stare in shock and fear as the mother Kangaskhan released her built up mega punch. It landed squarely between the Pokémon's eyes, the force of the punch created a wind tunnel the swept the considerable bulk of the second Pokémon back. Its backward travel was halted when it slammed, back first into the cliff wall. It pitched forward and fell heavily on its stomach, but still tenaciously struggled to regain its footing. The mother Kangaskhan had already turned away, the enemy was too weak and worn out to provide a viable threat to her or her child anymore. As the fallen Pokémon continued weakly pulling itself to its feet, the impact of it hitting the cliff wall caused a sizable bit of rock to dislodge and tumble down the cliff edge. Just as the bulky Pokémon gained its footing the rock dropped heavily onto its, causing the Pokémon to slump back down, knocked-out cold.

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Author's Notes:

-Who's that Pokémon from last chapter was tentacruel, though I would have taken tentacool as well.

-I liked how this chapter turned out much better I may end up rewriting the battle for the second chapter. And you have no idea how close I came to killing off the mystery Pokémon in this. But I figure save it for either a later chapter or not do it at all. Anyway, let me know how it was!

~Illusion-Factory


	4. Introductions All Around

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

My longest yet with some character development.

Oh yeah and anyone who has suggestions on Pokémon battles, lemme have 'em.

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"Okay Tess, I get it, you caught a wailord. Good job." Tess who had for the past several minutes been ranting, raving and explaining in great detail how exactly she had caught her wailord, narrowed her eyes at the dry sarcastic tone. She placed her hands on hips as she surveyed the rather sad looking figure sitting slumped on the stonewall in front of her.

"Ya know Connor, maybe some groans of dismay or a cry of outrage so I can properly gloat over this would be nice, I mean I went through A LOT of trouble to get one just so I could see the absolute look of shock and outrage on your and Mike's faces." Connor glared at some far off point. Tess just sighed dramatically and dropped onto the wall next to him, Connor only slouched further down. "Alright, what's the matter Connie? Did wittle baby lose his prewcious wicious pokeymon match against his biwg scwary budder?" Tess's hand latched out and snagged Connor's cheek between her forefinger and thumb. "Huuuuh? Tell Auntie Tessie _allllll_ about it." She said, dragging out the 'all' as she pinched his cheek hard, his response was to slap her hand away and scoot down the wall to put distance between them.

"Cut that out yo!" Connor rubbed his abused cheek eyeing Tess like she was a wild animal. She just smiled very wide, showing all of her teeth. "And it's not like Mike is so much bigger or older than me anyway, we're only ten minutes apart." Tess aww'd and shuffled closer to Connor who leaned back as she invaded his personal two foot or in her case, the four foot space bubble.

"You just keep telling yourself that that doesn't matter sweetie." She patted his knee in fake sympathy. "But you really shouldn't keep all the anger inside." Connor leapt to his feet and pointed at her.

"You mean like you!" His finger was shaking and his voice had risen a few octaves in disbelief and anger, Tess just crossed her leg and folded her hands in her lap. "You are the angriest person, male or female that I have ever! EVER! Met! Everything makes you angry! And you have no qualms about letting everyone in a twenty mile radius know it! Something pisses you off and you start pointing and yelling at anyone around you! If no one's around, you start yelling at the ground, the sky, your Pokémon, THE UNIVERSE!" Through the tirade Tess had remained seated like a lady watching Connor demurely. "The UNIVERSE Tess, the universe! And don't even get me started on the borderline psychotic way you always, _always_ need to battle someone! Anyone who has any Pokémon, even Pokémon ten _times_ as strong as yours! You go after them all! Even when you must _know_ you're going to lose! And your Pokémon! Good lord woman! They're as insane about battling as you are! Even Man O' War, the most mellow of group, and the only reason he holds that title is because he's so grumpy ALL the time! Oh but challenge him in a Pokémon battle and he's a machine! A crazy berserker fighting machine! It makes no sense, _you_ make no sense!" He dropped his hand, panting hard. Tess smiled sweetly.

"There. Don't you feel so much better?" She said innocently. Connor's look of disbelief was met with her still smiling visage as she stood primly up from her seat. "And since we're on the subject of my battling prowess," Her hand disappeared under the hem of her shirt to her belt, where it grabbed two pokeballs, unnoticed by Connor who was mouthing 'battle prowess' with a confused expression on his face.

"Wait, were we even listening to the same rant?"

"Omi and Waily go!" The hand clutching both pokeballs whipped out and the two orbs flew through the air, one whacking Connor in the face, the other releasing it's Pokémon into the river running next to the path. The pokeball dropped away from Connor's face, leaving a bloody nose and landing with a clatter on the path in front of him before it too released the Pokémon to land with a huge splash in the river.

"Damnit Tess! What hab I tol you 'bout gibing me fair warning?" Connor's voice was muffled by the hand he had clamped firmly over his bleeding nose. He was glaring heatedly at Tess who was smiling a Cheshire cat grin at him with her hands clasped behind her back, rocking back and forth on her heels.

"Ooops, I guess my hand slipped" She sing-songed. Connor finished wiping the blood off his face with the back of his hand and turned around to glance at the two Pokémon Tess had decided upon, already flinging out his own two choices.

"Henry and uh, Rico go and-What the hell Tess!?" Connor had gotten his first look at Tess's choice and had now slapped a blood-spattered hand over his eyes. The small, cute blue omanyte was nothing new but the creature that was so big it didn't fit in the river, with its head and tail on the bank, and its body actually acting as a temporary river dam, was quite the eye opener. And was it pink? He spread his fingers and peeked through the openings before quickly hiding his eyes again. Yes it was pink. Tess's sugary-sweet too innocent voice came floating over to him.

"Well, since I spent so long telling you about it I figure why not show you the fruits of my labor? Meet my new team member, Waily the wailord!" Waily managed to spout a small stream of water out of his blowhole at the introduction. Connor had moved to pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut.

"Tess, this field is hardly appropriate for a wailord." Tess fisted her hands on her hips.

"Says you! Waily here can and will take you down!" The wailord chimed in with a low moan. "See? He even agrees with me!" Connor just sighed. Dealing with Tess always left him with a headache.

"You know what? I don't even care anymore, just get on your side of the river and let's get this over with."

"Fine, fine." Tess grumbled as she stomped across the bridge to the other side of the river, placing herself behind her own two Pokémon. She cupped her hands around her mouth "Are you ready now princess?!" She shouted over to Connor.

"Rico, confusion on the Omanyte! Henry confuse that wailord with confuse ray!" Was her answer. The purple rabbit-like Pokémon focused on the smaller of the two opponents, its eyes glowed bright purple and the blue Omanyte was outlined in the same bright purple before it was knocked off its tentacles and slammed backwards out of the water. It skidded to a halt and shook itself before diving back into the water. Henry was charging a glowing orange ball of light in its disembodied hands which after just a few seconds was aimed and released on a path to the wailord. It struck the wailord and the eyes turned red.

"Alright Connor, I was prepared for something like this!" Tess was busily rooting around in her knapsack with one hand. "BEHOLD!" She whipped her hand out of the bag, a small yellow tube with a round end clutched in it. Connor squinted from his standpoint across the river.

"It's a….flute?" He ventured after a few moments.

"Wrong!...Uh, I mean correct! It's a _yellow_ flute. Do you know what a _yellow_ flute does Connie?" Connor just sighed.

"Look Tess, are we going to battle or play show and tell the entire time?" The Pokémon had begun shifting restlessly at the long pause between attacks. Tess seemed to finally take stock of the fact that the battle she had started was actually underway.

"Oh right." She sheepishly scratched the back of her head with the hand not holding her flute. "Omi, retaliate with mud shot! Slow that rino-rabbit down!" The blue omanyte shot out onto the bank and rocked back on his shell and fired several globs of mud which struck the other Pokémon hard, turning the ground around Rico into a slippery mud pit. He slipped and fell heavily in the mud, and tried to struggle to his feet but the mud was like ice and quicksand and the short clawed feet kept sliding out from under him. "And as for my poor confused Waily, Fear not! I shall play you a song and cure your confusion!" Tess declared.

Connor and his two pokemon's faces were masks of disbelief. Connor managed to pull himself together first. "Tess do you even know how-" He was cut off as Tess took a deep breath and blew hard into the flute. The resulting sound caused not only the wailord to be cured of confusion, but probably every window to be cured of having panes.(Oh I went there) "Tess STOP!" Connor yelled from where he was crouched over hands pressed against his ears. The horrible shrieking sound abruptly cut off.

"Sorry, got a little carried away." Connor straightened up.

"A little? I think my eardrums ruptured."

"Oh stop being a big baby." Connor glared at her.

"Fine, my turn again, Rico helping hand! Henry go for a shadow punch on the Omanyte."A ring of bright orbs surrounded the mud-bound pokemon and then transferred themselves over to his floating partner pokemon. One of the clawed hands began to gather purple and black lighting around it before it launched towards the little blue pokemon.

"Omi withdraw quickly!" The omanyte disappeared into its spiral shell just as the clawed fist hit home. Cracks spread across the surface of the shell as it landed back in the water with a splash. "Waily, don't let him get away with that! Water pulse!" The wailord squirmed a bit in the too small river, attempting to locate his target. But soon opened his huge maw and fired out three rings of water at the retreating Henry. The first ring Henry managed to avoid but the next two hit him in quick succession and he was soon skidding across the ground. Waily already shifting himself into position for a second water pulse.

"Rico cover him with sludge bomb!" The medium sized pokemon shook himself tilted his head downward and then whipped it back up with his mouth open. A large glob of brown mud surrounded by a purple aura shot out of the open mouth into the air. It arched up skyward and dropped almost lazily back toward the huge venerable target of the beached Waily. Waily struggled to get out from under it but to no avail, the sludge bomb landed dead on. The wailord thrashed in pain as the poison spread through his body. "Ha! This match is so mine! Your Waily's like a giant sitting duck out of water." Suddenly several streams of electric blue energy tore a furrow in the ground as they converged on the weakly floating Henry, still recovering from the water pulse attack. The light blue bolts hit him hard and the pokemon cried out as it was frozen solid and dropped the few feet to land heavily on the ground. Connor's mouth dropped open as the blue ball from which the energy streams had originated disappeared from the opening of the Omanyte's spiral shell, and the shell dropped back into the river.

"Oh look. It looks like Henry is also pretending to be a duck." Tess grinned evily. "Waily, let's give ourselves even more of an edge, rain dance time!" The wailord shot a ball of blue energy from his blowhole up into the sky and then began to squirm and writhe oddly as the poison took hold. Overhead dark rain clouds began to gather.

"Well, damn." Connor fumbled around in his backpack for the ice heal he always kept on hand specially for when he ran into Tess, then, ice heal firmly in hand, sprinted over to the frozen block of ice that was his second pokemon as the rain clouds blotted out the sun and fat drops of rain fell over the river and field. "Rico! Keep 'em busy! Double kick that omanyte!" He called over his shoulder as he sprayed the ice heal over the frozen pokemon.

"Omi! Water gun!" The medium sized purple pokemon leapt forward as the spiral shell popped out of the water. Rico spun in the mud and used his now glowing back legs to deliver two powerful kicks to the already cracked omanyte shell. The shell flew through the air and bounced once or twice on the bank before landing in-front of Tess. Omi slumped out of the shell, knocked out cold. "Oh Omi." Tess recalled him to his pokeball. "Waily it's all up to you now! Use water pulse again!"

"Alright Henry, get in there! Shadow punch!" The now unfrozen pokemon repeated the gesture from before, his clawed hand was fisted and purple lighting surrounded it. As it raced toward its intended victim, the large pokemon weakly struggled in the mud the rain was creating as he shot the three rings of water back toward the grinning purple pokemon. The fist connected solidly against the wailord but didn't seem to faze him overly much. The three rings from the water pulse attack landed direct hits on Henry and finished him off for the battle. Waily twitched violently again as the poison from the sludge bomb worked through his systems. "One more sludge bomb outta do it Rico." The purple pokemon grunted in agreement and dragged his forefoot through the mud, tilting his head back down and then whipping it back up to shoot the blob of poison mud from his mouth at the wailord.

"RRgg, water gun water gun!" The wailord opened his mouth to comply with the order but was too slow as the poisoned mud struck him hard on the head. The wailord gave a final groan and flopped on the ground defeated.

"Good job Rico." Connor gingerly patted the last pokemon standing on the head, mindful of the poison spikes and caked on dirt and mud. The rain continued to fall around them in a heavy downpour. "Jeez Tess," Connor snarked as he returned Rico to his pokeball. "You just had to make sure we got drenched right?" Tess who had walked back over the bridge poked him in the chest.

"I call a rematch." Connor held up his hands.

"Not right now. You've worn my two best out." Tess's eyes narrowed and she poked him harder in the chest.

"Those weren't your two best, maybe your two mediocre-est, but not your best. I've seen your best." She accused. Connor just turned and started walking towards the town and hopefully a pokecenter.

"Yeah, well, those two weren't you're best either." He grunted as the not-entirely unexpected weight of Tess landed on his back, he had heard her running footsteps behind him. He locked his arms under her to keep her from falling as she clung to his waist with her legs and draped her arms over his shoulders.

"I just wanted to show you my new pokemon." Connor snickered.

"Needs some work." He could feel Tess roll her eyes.

"Tell me about it. You should have seen his moveset before I modified it a bit. It was horrible. I almost can't believe I wasted all that time trying to catch one. Though once I get through with my little Waily he will kick much ass." Connor shrugged. Dealing with Tess after a match was always better then dealing with her before one. For one, she talked like a normal person and didn't rant and two she wouldn't have the energy or drive to get angry for another few hours. Maybe he could talk her into telling him where she caught the wailord. For all the bragging she had done earlier, Tess had conveniently forgotten or left that detail out on purpose. The conniving brat. He really wanted to get one before his brother managed to train his wailmer up. Sibling rivalry at it's finest. He twitched his nose, it was still a little stiff. He hated how pokemon battling with Tess always led to him getting physically injured somehow.

* * *

Author's Notes: Who's that pokemon from last chapter is Rhyhorn.

-Tess in case you didn't notice, is the wailord girl from chapter two, Connor though it's not really mentioned is the losing guy from chapter one and his brother mentioned here but not actaully shown is the winner from the same chapter. Expect to see more of them.

-Did you see what I did there? Two mystery pokemon for the price of one! Enjoy.

~Illusion-Factory


	5. Meet A Trainer Day

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

I will probably do a 'bring your Pokémon to work day' next. XD

* * *

"Okay children, everyone, quiet down now." The teacher clapped her hands to gain the attention of the class. Once all the children were silent she started. "I know all of you are very excited and nervous, next year many of you will be old enough to receive your starter Pokémon and set off on your very own Pokémon journey." The teacher paused to sweep the class with a glare to forestall any 'excited' talking so she could continue. "So to help you fully understand the journey you will be taking, I have managed to track down three Pokémon trainers who also come from our beloved little town and graduated from this very school. They are coming here to answer your questions and talk about their own journey. These trainers are busy, and it is extremely kind of them to take the time out of their training to visit us today, so I want you all to be on your very, _very,_ best behavior. Is that understood?" At the resulting affirmation, the teacher nodded briskly. "Very well, I want you all to line-up single file we are to meet them outside in the school yard. Hurry up now."

As the class marched out into the school yard the faint sounds of raised voices met their ears. Over by the lone oak tree at the far side of the yard three figures were gathered. The closer the class got the more they could make out from the yelling.

"You totally cheated!" That voice was undeniable female and it came from the figure that was posed aggressively, poking the second figure in the chest, while the third stood off to the side.

"I did not! I won fair and square!" The second voice was male and by now the class was close enough to see that the third figure was also male and seemed to be observing the interaction between the first two with a fond smile on his face.

"Like hel-"

"Tess!" The third male cut in hurriedly, as the irate female zeroed in on a new attack target he quickly motioned to the class now lined up behind him. "The young and very impressionable children are here." That brought Tess's anger to an abrupt halt, she visibly deflated.

"Oh right, the children." She mumbled sheepishly, settling into a more relaxed position. The second male folded his arms across his chest and huffed in annoyance, glaring off to the side. The third, seeing as he was getting no help from either of his companions turned back to the class, now watching them with wide, un-blinking eyes.

"Uhh, why don't you kids take a seat?" He offered. Once the children were settled more comfortably on the ground he sighed and began introductions. "Alright my name's Mike, I'm eighteen years old this is my brother Connor." The second boy who actually bore an amazing resemblance to the third nodded his head at the intro. "And uh, this is" Here Mike glanced at the only female who was staring at the ground sulkily, before sighing and continuing ahead. "Tess, we're all the same age and we all started our trainer journey at the same time too." Mike looked back over at his two friends. Still nothing. Time for plan B: let the kids run the show. "So uh, let's start off with some questions. How about you?" The small girl visibly shrank back before asking her question in a soft voice.

"What starter pokemon did you choose?" Mike grinned, picking a pokeball off his belt.

"Why tell when I can show?" He pressed the release button and the pokeball cracked open, the red light formed into the shape of his very first and most favorite Pokémon. His Pokémon stretched and yawned showing of sharp white teeth before shaking himself thoroughly. The children were immediately quiet, staring at the taller pokemon in awe. "This is Ex. He was my starter pokemon, but back then he was a much smaller size." At this point, Mike turned back to his compatriots, who were standing next to each other, studiously ignoring the person next to them and angrily whispered. "Hey, come on, I can't do this on my own. Why don't you two suck it up and let them see your starters." It wasn't so much a request as a very forceful demand. Both trainers shuffled around grabbing the correct pokeball and releasing their starter pokemon. The twin flashes of light formed into a big blue and red Feraligatr, who growled and clacked his claws together and a large mint green Meganium that chirped happily at being let out in the sunshine. The children could only gasp and stare in shocked amazement at the fully evolved pokemon. Mike just sighed at the immaturity of his brother and friend. Honestly, they were powerful trainers who had all eight badges each, almost adults even and they still acted the same as they had when they were growing up. Obviously until the two could resolve their differences (unlikely) he would just have to take over this little show and tell. So he started with what he knew best, his own pokemon.

"Let's start with just some basics on each one so you'll have some background info when it's your turn to choose." Mike patted Ex on his cream and navy blue muzzle. "When Ex here is in a relaxed setting like this, he doesn't show his flames, so if you didn't recognize it, Ex is a fire type. Fire starters are notorious for being harder to train because they evolve at much higher levels than other starters. You have to put a lot of effort into it but you get a really powerful Pokémon if you train them right." Behind him he could just hear the start of an angry whispered conversation.

"I still say you cheated, cheater."

"I did not cheat! It's called using strategy, not that you would know a good strategy if it walked up and called you an idiot, idiot." Mike rolled his eyes and raised his voice to cover the steadily rising volume of the argument. But it was a lost cause.

"You totally cheated!! You knew I was out of antidotes! You knew!" Tess was back in full fighting pose, complete with her dramatic point of death tm. Her Feraligatr picking up on her anger began to get angry himself and thumped his heavy tail against the ground while crouching aggressively, ready to spring at the Meganium. "I would have owned you if it wasn't for those damn poison powders and double teams you kept using!" Mike threw up his hands in defeat and gesturing to his pokemon to step away from the duo, walked over and sat next to the kids in the front row, Ex laying out on the ground next to him to watch the fun. Might as well make this a learning experience.

"Pokemon trainers have different styles of combat." He raised his voice to lecture a bit as his two companions continued to shout at each other, their pokemon already sizing the other up. "This battle will be an example. Tess is a water-type trainer almost exclusively. Her first pokemon was actually a tentacool, so she is, technically the senior trainer. However her battle style is to hit hard and fast, my brother Connor likes to keep a good defense that actually becomes an offense. So he goes for long drawn out battles with status aliments. At the moment, Connor has the edge with both his Meganium, Clover a grass type and the fact that this battlefield doesn't have any bodies of water, so Monty's water based attacks won't have as much kick." He winced as Tess screamed at his brother who was bellowing something and pointing angrily at the ground. "Picking a battlefield is almost as important as picking your pokemon. Now watch and learn."

At that point Tess had reached her breaking point. She stamped her foot and yelled for her pokemon. "Monty! Ice fang!" The large pokemon roared and lunged for the green one gaping mouth open blue bolts of ice flying from his fangs to strike. The children gasped from the ferocity of the attack. Clover managed to sidestep one of the blue bolts but the second one cut across his shoulder and he growled from the pain, flinching. "Follow that up with another ice fang!" The long blue tail whacked against the ground as Monty's electric blue fang attack hit the Meganium dead on. Clover shrieked and reared onto his hind-legs taking several steps backwards then crashing to his feet, looking the worse for wear. "Heey Connor! What're you gunna do? Poor little Clo won't be able to take another ice attack!" Connor growled under his breath at Tess.

"Double team Clo!" Tess growled and stabbed Connor in the chest with a finger as duplicates of Clover spread out in a semi circle around a confused looking Monty.

"_That's_ what I'm talking about! You never attack outright! You're such a cheater!" Monty's head whipped back and forth as he tried to find the original Meganium, confused expression still in place. Connor fisted his hands and yelled back in her face.

"It's not cheating! It's a legitimate strategy!" Monty was fed up with being confused and let out an angry roar, his eyes glowing red. "You're just mad because now you can't hit anything." Tess gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes at Connor. Before anyone could say or do anything she had hauled back a fist and punched Connor squarely on the nose causing him to stumble back a few feet holding his now bleeding nose.

"Oops. Looks like I can actually hit something, so it must be your face that angers me." She smirked triumphantly. The children gasped and a few of the girls giggled. Mike pinched the bridge of his nose. He hadn't been sure if this whole 'meet a trainer' day had been a good idea in the first place, now he knew for a fact that it wasn't. "Monty another ice fang, we only need to hit him once more." Monty roared and let loose with another blast of icy, snow wind. Several of the Meganium copies disappeared. But the real one was un-hit. Connor un-clasped his hands from around his nose to check that the blood had stopped with a final wipe he turned his attention back to the battle.

"Double team and follow that up with poison powder." Connor called over to his pokemon. Clover shifted and more copies of himself surrounded the berserk feraligatr. While the feraligatr growled and kept turning around trying to spot the real one, the meganiums began to shake their shoulders, the leaves of the giant plant ringing their necks rustled together and a fine purple mist began to fill the air. Tess snarled.

"You think you're soooo damn clever don't you?" She was back to poking him the chest again. "Well, I'm onto your cheap tricks." Monty watching the purple mist creep closer flicked his tail several times before crouching down into a battle pose. Connor sighed and rolled his eyes but his hands flew to cover his nose when Tess glared at him. "Monty!" The feraligatr grumbled to show he was listening. "Let's show these guys our new super awesome move…of pure AWESOME!!" At the last word she whipped her hand up to point straight above her at the sky. "Point a blizzard at the sky!" Connor, Mike and about a dozen schoolchildren were struck speechless and not in a good way. Tess had that affect on people.

Monty took in a deep breath and then large jaws opened. He pointed his head toward the sky and breathed out a strong burst of icy-cold wind laden with snowballs. The blizzard poured upwards and then spread out, falling back on the battlefield in a blanket. An angry cold blanket. The howling wind swept the purple mist aside easily and then continued on. It quickly covered the entire battlefield and then some. The winds whipped and surged over the copies, causing them to vanish until only one, the real one remained. Clover dug his feet into the ground and turned his head away from the powerful winds. Weathering the attack with eyes screwed shut. But it was all in vain the cold wind and frozen snow caused icicles to form on the flower petals and antenna. Clover finally collapsed from the sheer cold and slumped to the ground. Quickly becoming covered over in snow.

After a few minutes the winds died down and the snow stopped. Connor sulkily recalled Clover, after he managed to brush the snow off of himself so he could move. Monty let out a huge victory roar and Tess joined him with her own brand of insane laughter. The entire school yard was covered in snow. The seated students and Mike were now little mounds of snow drifts. A particularly large mound of snow was blown sky high as Ex's flame collar roared to life. Mike managed to climb out of his own snowdrift. He brushed himself off before turning to the two other trainers.

"Tess!" Tess abruptly stopped laughing and turned to look at him. He gestured at the mounds of snow. "Care to help dig the kids out?" Tess giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. Mike sighed again. Connor probably wouldn't talk to anyone for a while after this. Tess probably wouldn't shut up about her victory and as he surveyed the snow covered class digging themselves out, helped along by Connor and Tess, he shook his head. At least they wouldn't have to worry about doing another 'meet a real trainer day' for a loooong time.

* * *

Author's note:

-Who's that pokemon: Nidorino and Haunter

- Mike's the straight man in the trio in case you hadn't guessed, Tess is slightly insane and Connor is an idiot.

-When the teacher said track down, she meant drag back by the collars of their shirts.

-Tess+ Connor +a bunch of young kids=asking for trouble

-Looking to do a couple of chapters based on a tournament, so if you have any OCs you wanna lend to me, let me know.

~Illusion-factory


	6. Meeting New People

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Doing one for each of my three trainers, this one takes place waaaay before the other couple of times you've seen them, circa 13-14 years old. Oh yeah and Connor spends a good deal of time being lost, he can't read a map to save his soul. XD

* * *

"Okay so did I miss that left turn or was it the bridge that threw me off." Connor mumbled to himself as stared intently at the map in-front of him. He twisted it from side to side, squinting his eyes and alternating between holding the map up to his nose and at arm length. "Maybe it was that right by the power plant that threw me off…but where the hell _is_ the power plant on this thing?" So engrossed in figuring out his location on the map, he didn't notice the two figures dressed in black with large red 'R's on their chests standing by the road side. In fact he passed right by them without even looking up from the map still muttering to himself.

-----

The two team rocket members were in dire straits. They were behind on their weekly pokemon quota for the boss and out here, the middle of nowhere, was a hard place to find pokemon trainers that they could steal the pokemon off of. But now it seemed that luck and good fortune were smiling on them again. Along had come a pokemon trainer, a very lost, very young pokemon trainer. The two looked at each other and smiled evil little smiles as the oblivious boy walked right past them. They hurried to catch up with him and the bigger of the two reached out and grabbed the boy's shoulder. Before he could open his mouth to say anything the boy suddenly went rigid, let out a girlish scream, threw his hands into the air and before the map had even fluttered to the ground was already a good distance away and gaining ground. Let it never be said that Connor couldn't keep his head in a crisis. The bigger team rocket member was left with his hand clutching air, but only for a moment and then he was whipping out a pokeball, jumping onto the back of the revealed pokemon, a tauros, and giving chase, his companion not far behind mounted on a rhyhorn.

"Hey kid! Stop running!" The second rocket yelled as his mount pulled even with the frantically running boy. "We just want to steal some of your pokemon." The first rocket member shook his head the higher ups had been scraping the bottom of the recruitment barrel with this guy. Predictably the kid only screamed louder and ran faster. But as he raced ahead of the two members he called out his own pokemon. A bayleef appeared running along next to him. The boy grabbed onto the bayleef's shoulder and managed to heave himself onto his back while his second pokemon took to the skies, gossamer wings creating a buzzing sound.

The first rocket member gritted his teeth obviously this kid was no rank amateur, he would have to be careful how he went about handling him. His companion however, had no such thoughts and spurned his rhyhorn faster catching up to the kid. As he drew alongside his target preparing to attack, the boy was already at least a step ahead of the luckless Rocket.

"Clover! Razor leaf!" The bayleef flicked his head leaf around sending much smaller, and more importantly shaper leaves flying in the air. The rhyhorn roared with pain as the smaller leaves cut gashes across the armor-like plating. The attack caused the rhyhorn to slow down, allowing Clover to begin to gain distance again. The rocket member smacked his hand down on the rhyhorn's shoulder.

"Keep up! We can't let him get away!" The rhyhorn rumbled in response, picking up his pace. The other team rocket member was holding back and observing the fight. As the rhyhorn once again drew even with the runaway bayleef, the rocket tried once more to attack. "Take down now!"

The rhyhorn glowed a bright white and slammed into the bayleef's side, causing him to trip sideways, landing heavily on his side. Connor managed to roll and come up on his feet. However the Rhyhorn too suffered from the attack and both were brought to a halt, the bayleef struggling to his feet and the rhyhorn shaking its head, clambering up from the seated position it found itself in. The Tauros carrying the bigger team rocket member slowed down to halt as well.

"Now that you're no longer running away, we intend to relieve you of some of your pokemon." He informed Connor.

"And if you're good, we might even let you keep a couple." The other rocket leered. "So why don't you just hand them over now?"

"Clo, another razor leaf! Shin use sand attack now!" Clover had climbed back to his feet, he gave the giant sprout on his head another twirl and the air was filled with the smaller green spinning leaves as they cut across the path to the rhyhorn. From above the buzzing of the wings grew slightly louder and a black shape dove to the ground. It flew across the dirt path toward the Tauros, at the last second shooting back into the sky. A cloud of dust from its passing hurtling into the large bull's eyes, causing him to rear and almost throw his trainer off. Another roar of pain filled the sky as the rhyhorn was buffeted by the blade sharp little leaves. It reared back onto its hind legs, taking a few steps back before it crashed to the ground and lay still. Unfortunately for its trainer, it had landed on the rocket's leg and arm, trapping him beneath its considerable bulk.

The boy wasted no time as soon as the razor leaf attack had died down he leapt back onto his bayleef's back, taking to the road at a breakneck pace. The remaining team rocket member hurriedly pushed his angry and still unable to see tauros in pursuit. Ignoring the feeble cries for help of his downed companion as his tauros galloped past them.

As the Tauros began to steadily gain on the boy, the rocket bent lower over the back of his pokemon so that he could order an attack without the boy overhearing.

"Flamethrower." He murmured in the Tauros's ear. The Tauros bellowed and opened his mouth, allowing a huge jet of flame to shoot toward the Bayleef. The attack missed its intended target by a good foot. Obviously the Tauros was still suffering the effects of the sand attack, he growled under his breath in frustration, now the element of surprise had been lost and any chance of ending it quickly was gone. The boy glanced behind at him, saw him catching up and made a little 'eep' sound.

"Shin sand attack again! Clo poison powder." The buzzing increased again and a repeat movement of the insect resulted in more sand being whipped up in his and the tauros's faces. The rocket trainer tried to protect his eyes with a raised arm. But the attack was concentrated and a few grains of sand found their way into his eyes anyway. By the time he had wiped the granules away his Taruos was headed straight into a cloud of purple colored pollen, he had no time to stop or turn his pokemon away. He covered his mouth and nose with a hand and turned his head into his arm.

The tauros burst through the other side of the cloud and stumbled before picking his pace up. His face was clouded a slight purple and his pace was notably slower than before. His trainer uncovered his face, just over the horizon he could see the tops of skyscrapers as a city came into view. He had to stop the boy before he reached the city limits.

"Flamethrower!" He would only need to hit the bayleef once, just once, to put it and the boy's escape down. The tauros let loose another stream of fire but much like the first time it went wide causing no harm to the bayleef. His tauros stumbled and slowed further as the poison began to work. The only saving grace was that the bayleef was tiring out as well, he was not made for such long distance fast paced running and battling.

"Shin! Screech!" The fast flying pokemon circled lower over the tauros, from its gold masked mouth came a horrible high pitched scream. The tauros slid into a rear, pawing the air with his front hooves, his trainer dumped in the dust. "Clo, magical leaf." The bayleef flicked his head leaf again causing glittery pink petals to strike the exposed belly of the tauros. The Tauros bellowed in pain and crashed heavily to the ground. The rocket pulled himself to his feet; the wind had been knocked out of him in the subsequent fall off his tauros.

"Hyper beam!" The rocket member yelled, desperate to end the fight there and then. His tauros had half struggled to his feet but paused to let loose with the powerful red orange beam from his mouth. However the bayleef, tired though he was could see the attack coming. He managed to gather his energy and hop sideways, the beam missed hitting him head-on but did catch him just off the shoulder. The bayleef roared in pain, stopping and shivering. The boy leapt off his ride and rummaged in his back pack. The rocket groaned, of course the boy would have a few potions on him and his tauros would have to recharge as he was slumped in the path, temporarily out of energy, the poison taking effect after the hyper beam. He was all out of pokemon, the Tauros was the only one he had had on hand.

"Screech again!" The black bodied insect swooped back, shrieking. His tauros bellowed angrily back, but it definitely lacked power. The Bayleef was now standing strong again, facing his one foot in the pokeball tauros. "Razor leaf." The boy tossed out, he knew that he had the tauros where he wanted him. The air was soon filled with the sharp green leaves. His tauros cried out as the leaves cut into him, leaving multiple cuts across the Tauros's body. The rocket growled at his tauros, kicking it viciously.

"Get up! Get up and fight you useless pokemon! We need to win!" The boy narrowed his eyes and turned to head toward the city.

"Silver wind Shin, finish it." The second pokemon dived down its wings glowed white as it increased the speed of its wings even more. A bright white wind was directed at the team rocket member and his tauros. For a few minutes both withstood the wind but as the wind only increased in intensity, the trainer began to feel himself being pushed back and up. A glance at his Tauros confirmed that it too was losing ground. Finally the tauros was flung backward, slamming into the trainer and the two were blown back and away from the force of the attack. Well, the rocket thought shortly before he landed, there went his promotion.

------

Connor recalled both his pokemon and shrugged. Turning he continued into the city. At least one good thing had come out of those weirdoes, he had found the city. Now the only thing on his mind was what were those big letters R's those strangers were wearing supposed to stand for?

* * *

Author's notes:

-Who's that Pokemon: Typholsion

-Here Connor finally gets his own chapter, I figured I focus on Tess too much and should let the other two have their moments.

-The idea for this was Connor meets team rocket, and in case it's not clear, he's just jumpy, he doesn't recognize them as from team rocket, he probably doesn't even know what team rocket is. I'll probably do a Tess meets team Aqua or magma and Mike meets team whatever from Pearl. I haven't played it so I don't know it too well.

-As always if you have any oc's let me know, give me a physical description, what Pokémon they use and base levels/attacks for those Pokémon.

~Illusion-Factory


	7. Meeting New People Part 2

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Second out of my group of three, Tess gets in on the action, remember this is circa 13-14 years old, so their personalities and actions might not match up with earlier chapters.

* * *

"What the hell….is…wrong…with people today?" Tess heaved herself over a particularly steep ledge, she panted to catch her breath, hands on knees. She stood up, adjusted the straps of her pack and took off her hat as she wiped sweat-soaked bangs out of her face. Tess replaced the knit hat and surveyed the cliff wall, hands on hips. "I'm all for a little exercise and all, but this is really pushing it." She grabbed a firm hand hold on the cliff face and continued her climb up, this time lamenting her woes in a false falsetto voice. "Oh sure, a team magma member was spotted near the top of the volcano. I'm the gym leader I can't possibly leave my gym and investigate this possible danger to my village. You're a bright young water trainer, why don't you go?" Tess grumbled as she heaved herself up on another ledge and straightened out to continue her climb, this time dropping her imitation voice for her real one. "I dunno, maybe because I'm just a freakin kid and _you're a_ gym leader?" She stretched her arm up and grabbed a new handhold, pulling her body up to a new height.

Tess reached for another handhold but her foot slipped out from it precarious prech, leaving her dangling by one hand off the rock cliff. "What the hell?!!!!" She screamed, feet scrambling against the air. "I did _not_ sign up for this!" By dint of effort Tess managed to grab on to the rock wall with both hands, stabilizing herself as her feet found holds again. "Become a pokemon trainer they said, see the world they said, have great adventures they said." She muttered to herself as she continued climbing up the cliff. "Well I got news for ya, being a trainer SUCKS! I'm only fourteen and they have me climbing up mountains to go investigate criminal organizations! What the hell is up with that? Fire princess back there had better give me a damn badge for this-this saving the world shit!" She continued to complain all the way to the top.

In fact she was still muttering rebelliously to herself as her hands found the final edge of the top of Mt. Chimney. As she started to heave herself up, she trailed off mid-rant, mouth open, as a black boot slammed into the ground right in front of her face. Her eyes followed the boot to the leg it was attached to, up the leg, waist and torso until she found herself staring into the evilly leering expression of a team magma admin.

"Well what do we have here? A little trainer brat coming to stop me?" Tess immediately hopped to her feet, pointing her finger at the admin.

"I'll have _you_ know that I am not a little trainer brat! I've been a trainer for two years! The name's Tess and prepare to meet your DOOM!" The admin just looked from the point of her finger to her, then to the edge of the cliff and back to Tess again. A disbelieving and confused look appeared on his face.

"Did…did you just _climb_ up the side of the mountain?" He asked hesitantly. Tess snorted, withdrawing her arm.

"Well duh, why else would I be crawling over the edge of a mountain top covered in dirt and sweat?" She snarked angrily, the admin just gave her an incredulous look.

"Why didn't you just use the cable cars?" He asked. Tess's mouth dropped open, her eyes wide.

"The…the cable cars?" She asked in a soft trembling voice.

"Yeah, they're right over there." He gestured over his shoulder to a small building at the end of a long line of cables. The woman operator standing outside of the nice air conditioned interior waved cheerily at him and Tess. When he turned back to Tess there was a dark shadow over her face, her eyes hidden fists clenched at her sides.

"Are you telling me, that I just spent ALL day climbing up the side of this stupid mountain," Here Tess was shaking though what from the Admin couldn't even begin to guess, but _he_ certainly wasn't going to be the one comforting a crying girl, no sir. "When there were CABLE CARS???!!!" Her head whipped up, fire burning brightly in her eyes, the admin couldn't help himself taking a quick step back. "I will CRUSH you!!!" She shouted flinging a pokeball out.

Now at least, she was reacting in a manner the admin understood he too flinging out his first pokeball, however he didn't take into account the girl's sheer rage. "Blimey bubble beam!" Their pokemon were barely out of the ball and she was already attacking. The small oval pokemon she had chosen was reacting much faster than his own. Of course that might have been because he had chosen a Numel, they were not known for speed…or for beating water-types…sometimes it sucked being part of an elemental themed gang. He watched rather helplessly as the blue ray of small bubbles pounded into his numel, finishing it off instantly. He sighed, slowly reaching for next pokeball, which after a glance at Tess's angry face he pulled out and called upon his pokemon quickly.

"Poochyena! Bite attack!" The gray puppy-like pokemon leapt toward the blue and white bubble patterned opponent. Its sharp needle like teeth clamped onto one of the stubby blue arms causing Blimey to screech in pain and frantically shake the small dog off.

"Don't worry Blimey, we got the little puppy right where we want him." The admin decided he didn't like the dark tone that Tess was using. But there was nothing he could do as she called out her next attack. "Roll out boy!" The rabbit eared pokemon jumped up, curled into a ball and proceeded to roll the poochyena over. Luckily it didn't seem to hurt his pokemon overly much.

"That the best you got brat? Poochyena! Bite!" The puppy once again leapt toward his opponent, the attack did not go as planned. The blue pokemon had not unrolled or even stopped spinning, if anything he had started rotating faster. The poochyena was repulsed by the fast rotation and then hit by the roll-out attack again. This time it left visible damage and knocked the pokemon back to the admin's feet. As the poochyena staggered to his paws, the Admin growled. "Time to shift this fight toward a more strategic standing, poochyena! Howl!"

The gray puppy pointed his nose to the sky, letting out an eerie high pitched howl that caused his body to glow red. As the poochyena was powering up, Blimey had sped up his rotation rate, and before the admin could even get the order to attack out of his mouth had barreled into the other pokemon, sending him flying. The poochyena landed heavily on his side, skidding several feet to lie limply on the ground. The admin grimced as he called the poochyena back, this left him with only one pokemon, a fire type. Tess's pokemon leapt out of the roll-out attack to crouch in front of his trainer. He barely looked winded. No things were certainly not going the way the admin wanted them too, but maybe with a hope and a prayer he might be able to get away at least. He would have to make it fast since the water-rat had proved it was quick and could take down his own in a single shot.

"Numel! Magnitude!" The small yellow green creature flicked its ears and raised itself on its hind legs, slamming his stubby front ones into the ground. The earth began to tremble and shockwaves caused chunks of rock to obscure the admin and his numel from view.

"Damnit!" Tess growled as her pokemon took the hit, shielding her eyes from the debris. Blimey stumbled a bit but then straightened back up. When the trembling died down and the air had cleared, the team magma admin had vanished. Tess blinked a couple times, rubbed her eyes, looked again…nope still no admin and no numel either. Blimey snorted a few times and looked uncertainly back at his trainer. Tess's mouth was once again open; her face a mask of disbelief, Blimey quickly folded his supersensitive ears, holding them down with his paws.

"WHAT THE HELL??!!! I SPEND ALL THAT TIME CLIMBING UP THIS GODFORSAKEN MOUNTIAN AND THE GUY I'M SUPPOSED TO INVISTGATE LEAVES MID-BATTLE?" Blimey peeked up at her and then scrunched his eyes shut as the high-pitched yelling continued. "SO WHAT IF YOU'RE GOING TO LOSE? TAKE IT LIKE A MAN!"

Blimey staid crouched down as his trainer continued her screaming rant for a few more minutes. Finally silence descended, he opened an eye to check and see if the coast was clear. Currently his trainer was panting angrily but it looked like she had worn herself out. He quickly uncurled from his semi-ball and hopped over to her. Tugging on her jeans to get her attention, he cheeped happily and pointed towards the cable cars. Tess sighed deeply and picked him up.

"Yeah fine. Let's go check out those hot springs." She petted Blimey on the head before grinning widely. "And in the morning we'll pay fire princess a little visit, show her what we found out and all." Blimey grinned a feral grin, he hated being cut-off mid-fight as well and a gym leader battle was just the thing to work out his frustrations.

* * *

Author's notes:

-Who's that Pokemon: ninjask

-Tess never grew up, she just got worse and yes she is badass enough to climb mt. chimney in a single day.

-Tess is not the most observant of the group and Flannery is gonna get owned in the morning.

-Still accepting ocs, just need a physical/personality description, age, and pokemon team. If I get enough I can do a separate tournament story for them so please help me out.

See ya next time!

~Illusion-Factory


	8. Meeting New People Part 3

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Last of my group of three, Mike gets his chapter! Yay for Mike! The smart and sane one never gets as much attention as the other two.

* * *

A warm spring breeze blew through the flower fields of Floaroma Town, spreading the enticing flower scents through the town. The breeze ruffled the short brownish red bangs of a traveling trainer. The trainer blew his hair out of his eyes impatiently as he strolled down the main street of Floaroma town.

"Damn this is annoying." He mumbled as another breeze flopped his hair back in his face, he quickly pushed it back out of his face again, growling as the wind did the exact opposite a few seconds later. "That's it! I'm getting it cut!" The trainer stomped angrily off, further into the town in the hope he'd be able to find a barber or barring that, someone who knew how to use a pair of scissors. Being out, traveling around on his Pokémon journey, he didn't have much in the way grooming outside bare necessities, so his hair tended to get out of control. He had no idea how his brother managed to keep his hair short all the time and he didn't even wanna think about how Tess managed hair care at all. The girl had hair down to her shoulders. As he continued his musings a voice cut through his thoughts.

"This is a message to all trainers out there." Well, the last time he checked he certainly counted as a trainer. He looked around to determine the source of the voice, which after turning his head to the left he spotted a tv sitting in the window of a shop. The voice belonged to a woman dressed in silver and black with a weird yellow symbol on her chest…not that he was looking at her chest or anything. "Team Galactic is calling on you, trainers to make a difference. A difference in lives. Team Galactic Energy Resources is in desperate need for Pokémon and does not have the resources to train its own. Please send us your Pokémon. We need these Pokémon to further our research and help make the world a better place through the conversion of energy."

The trainer snorted in dark amusement, the sudden shift of his shoulders caused his back-pack to begin squirming. A blue and cream head popped out of the top of the bag to scan the area, looking for what had amused his trainer so. However the trainer had already turned away from the television, continuing his walk through the town, snickering to himself as he went. His Pokémon however would not be deterred pawing deftly at the back of the trainer's neck making a chirruping sound as he did so.

"Ow, Ex, cut it out." The now named Ex chirruped loudly at him, but refrained from pawing at his neck. The trainer rubbed marked skin. "As if I'd give you or any of the others for research, no serious trainer would do that." Ex purred in agreement, pushing the rest of the way out of the bag and jumping to the ground so he could walk beside his trainer. "If you run off, I'm not chasing you." The Pokémon chirruped happily, settling into a comfortable pace.

---time passing---

Okay so aside from all the flowers and pollen that was playing hell on his sinuses, Floaroma town wasn't such a bad place. He had managed to find someone who could cut his hair, no more bangs in the face for him! On top of that he had stocked up on some supplies for the journey back to Jhoto, he couldn't believe how far off track he had gotten. Really, going all the way to Shinnoh, what had he been thinking? Tess and Connor were probably waaaaaay ahead of him now. He looked down at Ex, his Quilava, had the other two already evolved to the final stage? It was entirely possible; Ex would evolve at a slower rate than Monty or Clover. Oh well, at least the side trip had proven good for leveling his fire starter up, not to mention his other team members.

He fiddled with the straps on his backpack as they walked away from Floaroma, wondering if Tess was still homicidally insane and if his brother was still lost in the safari zone. Honestly, he had no idea how his brother did it. Anytime Connor tried to follow a map, he got lost. Sure he could follow directions, street signs, landmarks, but put a map in those hands and the boy would become hopelessly lost. It was a talent; the trainer was sure, a useless slightly dangerous talent that had thankfully passed him over in the womb. Pondering over his brother's incredible geographical problems caused him to be a bit on the surprised side when a woman, dressed in the same black and silver as the lady on the tv jumped out in front of him.

"Ho there trainer!" The boy jumped and looked from side to side before pointing at himself with a puzzled expression. Crazy lady couldn't be talking to him. The woman sighed irritably. "Yes you. What is your name?" The trainer eyed her warily in his experience women who went around dressed like the Jettisons were usually not terribly stable.

"Miiikkkeee." He answered edging back from her a little bit. The woman did not seem to notice as she continued speaking to him in a buddy-buddy tone.

"Well Mike, I couldn't help but noticed that you have a pretty powerful looking Quilava there." Mike raised a skeptical eyebow, Ex shuffled from paw to paw uncomfortably as the woman stared at him intently before turning her attention back to Mike. "I was wondering if you'd like to donate him to the Team Galactic Energy Resource, he would be a great asset to us and you would be helping many people." Here Mike began to shake his head vigorously.

"No way, Ex is _not_ up for a trade or whatever it is you want. He's staying with me where he belongs." Ex punctuated this by crouching down; growling at the woman now deemed 'Threat to Happiness and Continued Existence with Mike'. (Tess for some unknown reason also fell under this category) The woman frowned for a second before trying a different tactic.

"Well, you look like a strong trainer. Surely you have a Pokémon or two you can afford to give us?" But Mike wasn't giving an inch, he folded his arms across his chest.

"Look lady, I'm sure you need the Pokémon, but the ones I have are really important to me. I'm not giving or trading them away." The woman's eyes narrowed as she came to the conclusion that there was only one thing left for her to do if she wanted Mike's Pokémon and she did, she was one pokemon behind on her quota. A commander couldn't skimp out on quotas, she would lose her position!

"Fine then," She snarled, her hand snapped out and two pokeball were sent soaring. "You had your chance, now we'll just have to do things the hard way!" Mike shifted his stance to a more battle ready one.

"Sounds good to me." He growled, also letting lose a pokeball. When the bright flashes of light had died down, the four Pokémon rapidly sized each other up. Mike broke the pre-battle calm first. "Rica! Double kick! Ex flame wheel the zubat!" The blue spotted Pokémon dashed forward, Ex following close behind, flames now sprouting from his back and head. Rica's back legs glowed white she spun around and before the Team Galactic Commander could register the attack, had landed two powerful kicks to the pudgy cat. Causing the purugly to take a few steps back, his chest fur dented with perfect imprints of the attacker's paws. At the same time Ex had sprinted forward, toward the blue flying bat, wreathed in his own flames. When he was a few feet from his target, he jumped forward, tucked himself in and began to roll. The flames whipped to a frenzy, engulfing Ex's body, the flaming ball of Quilava launched itself into the air, hitting the frantically hovering zubat dead-on. The zubat screeched as she was hit, nearly dropping to the ground.

"Well, you are a tough one." The commander said she clenched her fists, only the first move and her pokemon were almost finished! She hadn't expected the scruffy looking trainer to be this strong though she was hoping she could still salvage the battle if not her pokemon quota. "But not tough enough! Zubat leech life! Purugly! Scratch!" The zubat dove toward the medium sized Pokémon teeth glowing a faint red and latched onto the blue neck. Her victim squirmed and writhed clawing at the small bat. Her claw tipped paws finally wrapped around the blue ball yanking the zubat off. The team galactic commander gasped as her Purugly's scratch attack missed when Ex skipped nimbly to the side. Both of her pokemon's attacks had done nothing…well her zubat had landed the attack but was now worse off than before.

"You know" Mike's drawling voice cut across her thoughts "maybe next time you should properly scope the trainer out before you suddenly decide to battle someone." Her zubat was tossed to land at the commander's feet where she struggled before shakily gaining the air again. "That way you won't be so embarrassed when your victim turns out to be several levels beyond you."

Mike sighed as he watched the Purugly stumble through another scratch attack that Ex was able to dodge quite easily. Really, this battle was too simple, he had severe type advantage and her two Pokémon weren't very strong fighters to begin with. He almost felt sorry about it….naw that must have just been his stomach, man was he hungry. "Let's finish this guys!" Immediately his two Pokémon snapped to attention. "Another double kick Rica that fat cat won't be able to stand another one. Ex, do what you do best, light 'er up!"

The blue-aqua pokemon's back legs once again glowed a bright white as she dashed toward the plump gray and white cat.

"Purugly! Look out!" The commander shouted, but her Purugly was not fast enough. He managed to duck under the first kick the second however caught him right in the face, sending him flying through the air, to land with a thud some distanced away. The commander could only bite her lip as she recalled the KO'd Pokémon and her attention which had strayed to her Purugly was brought back to her zubat. The small blue and purple bat was desperately trying to avoid a vicious ember attack. But for every red hot pellet she dodged two more struck her. "Fly above it Zubat!" The commander ordered. She knew her zubat was down but hopefully another leech life could restore some of the lost health. "Leech life zubat!" When the fangs turned red the zubat zeroed in on her tormentor, Ex. As her Pokémon cut through the air toward the flaming Pokémon the commander grimly smiled. With some luck she could turn this battle around…right?

Just as the tiny bat was about to sink her teeth into Ex's neck a lighter blue streak appeared, grabbing the zubat out of the air. The streak formed itself into Mike's second Pokémon, who now held the zubat by the wing in her mouth. Sharp teeth bit down on the wing, causing the captive to screech in pain as she was violently shaken back and forth by the Pokémon holding her. The commander slumped to the ground as her zubat was released and sent tumbling head over tail to land limply on the ground before her. She recalled her with a shaking hand, staring at the ground in front of her in shock. It was supposed to have been an easy battle but that trainer had been able to beat her without even breaking a sweat, now everything was ruined. Tears welled up in her eyes.

Mike just stretched, turned and with his two Pokémon following him walked away. Rica trotted ahead a few paces and then turned to pounce on Ex. The two play fought, rolling along on the dusty path, batting and snapping at each other before Ex broke away, racing ahead with Rica following behind. Mike sighed, he had sooo been hoping that the battle would have at least dented their energy a little bit, but it looked like that was a bust. He slid his hands into his pockets as Ex and Rica came racing back toward him, running circles around his legs then taking back off after each other. Oh well, at least he was heading back to Jhoto where there were decent challengers. Hyper-active pokemon be damned.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Whos' that Pokemon: Azumarril, Blimey gets left at home when Tess picks up Waily.

-Trivia: Originally I was going to give Mike and Connor pink hair but I figured that would be too cruel. Connor would probably end up dying it and mike would wear a hat all the time so it was moot point anyway…

-By the way, you have NO idea how much I wanted to have the team galactic tv message be: "galactic conquest is near! Galactic conquest is near!" and if you can tell where that's from give yourself a cookie.

-Next on the agenda are a couple of requests and a few oc introductions, a big thanks to Fire Drastar, Legendary Fairy and Belhotte for lending me some ocs to play with! If you want to lend me your own oc, either pm me or review with their name, age, short physical description, personality, and pokemon team. For the pokemon team: give me a move list, personality, and most importantly: levels. I may tweek the levels to suit my own needs but it's always good to have a starting point. If I like I might use.

See ya next time!

~Illusion-Factory


	9. The Day Monty Almost Got to Relax

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

This was brought on by just reading the bio of one reader's oc's pokemon. It started out as a little thought that made me giggle, then it promptly kicked me in the ass, sat on my chest and demanded to be written. There isn't any serious pokemon battling in here though…it's just a cute little thing. Now pet it on the head and tell it what a good little idea it is.

Introducing Monty Vision!

* * *

It was a beautiful day. Clear blue cloudless sky, bright sunshine, a gentle breeze and no Connor or Mike in sight. Yes, Tess was not going to let this day go to waste. She was going to enjoy it to the fullest…and work on her tan. Besides her Pokémon had been working hard lately, they deserved a day off, so did she for that matter. She pedaled her bike along the dirt path outside of the village. Some of the old ladies hanging around the Pokémon center had told her of a nice quiet lake just outside the village. The perfect spot for her and her water Pokémon to take five relax, enjoy the sun a little. By their directions the clearing should be up ahead-ah there it was! She coasted into the lake clearing, coming to a halt on the bank. She hopped off the bike to take in the lake.

The lake was gorgeous! Lush green grass dotted with small flowers surrounded the sparkling waters in which wild water Pokémon frolicked. Tess set down her bike and knapsack. She licked a finger and held it up in the air. No strong winds, good. In less than ten second she had flung her clothes off revealing a blue and green bikini, kicked off her shoes and socks, laid out a towel(also blue and green), spread on some tanning lotion and tied back her hair. Before she could get down to the important business of enjoying the sun and a good book she had one last thing to do. Tess rummaged in her pile of clothing coming up with her six pokeballs. She quickly released all of her team around her. The air was soon filled with the growls and snarls as her team got used to the fact that yes they were all out of their pokeballs at the same time and no this was not a reason to start a fight, not even if the cute little Omanyte had squirted mud in the your eye, no not even if he had done it on purpose.

"Alright here's the deal!" Tess shouted her team immediately turned their undivided attention onto her. "I am tired, I have declared this a relaxation day, I will be lying here" Tess motioned to her towel, "Reading this," She held up her book for them to see. "If I am given a reason to get up and stop lying here, reading this" She shook the book to prove her point. "I will be unhappy and the unlucky Pokémon who stopped me from lying here, reading my book for anything less than an emergency, will be confined to their pokeball for the rest of the day…" None of her Pokémon looked particularly upset at that. "and possibly the next fight as well." This got a chorus of protests Tess waved her hand to forestall them. "I have spoken! Now be gone or be quiet!" So saying she whipped out a pair of sunglasses, set them on, dropped back onto her towel and cracked open her book. Silence descended rather quickly and her various Pokémon dispersed to pursue their own activities for the day. Tess was left in solitude with only her book, towel and Bedazzle, her crobat, who was sporting a matching set of shades, stretched out beside her soaking up the sun.

---Across the lake----

Coatsy picked up her head from where she had been lying, sprawled out, sunning herself on a rock. She scanned her surroundings as she did every couple of minutes. No telling what could be out there. The rest of her team and her trainer were lying in various positions not ten feet away from her. Having a celebratory after eating contest nap, the heathens. She snorted softly, counting to make sure that all were present and accounted for. One, two, three, she bobbed her head as she counted, four was sleeping on top of five, six had wrapped himself around the base of a tree, seven was…hold on, where was seven?

Coatsy turned to look back toward the lake, the last time she had seen the young riolu he had been off terrorizing the lake's goldeen and magikarp population. Really, the youngling had no sense of manners and was far too full of himself but she supposed that's what you got when you were raised by a bunch of…of _men_! Being the only girl on the team was trying in the best of circumstances. She began to grow more and more anxious as she failed to locate her missing teammate. Finally though she caught sight of him over by a group of cattails, her sigh of relief caught in her throat and came out as a wheeze. She quickly began to motor herself over to the young Riolu as fast as her yellow tentacle-like legs would push her. The little idiot! He was headed toward a world of hurt!

---Over by the cattails---

Inox growled as he punched and kicked at the thick armor-like hide in front of him. Earlier he had been showing the local wildlife who was the strongest pokemon around. But that had gotten dull, none of the wild pokemon were very strong, they hadn't stood a chance against him. He was just about to call it a day and head back to the group to partake of their napping when he heard an angry growling. As he turned around, a huge feraligatr stomped past him on a route to the lake, ground trembling faintly from the force of its stomps. (Actually Monty had stepped _over_ Inox on his way to the lakeside) The feraligatr's huge tail trailed after him, swinging from side to side and knocked the small Riolu to the ground without the giant Feraligatr even slowing down.

Inox pulled himself off the ground, rage making him move stiffly. The worst part of that encounter hadn't been when the tail had knocked him to the ground as if he was a feather. No, the worst part had been that the Feraligatr acted as if Inox wasn't even there, as if Inox was weak and not worth the trouble of noting. (In his defense Monty had been rubbing at his mud covered eyes, so he had not even seen Inox there and it was mostly luck that he had not accidently stepped on him.) Inox bristled angrily, glaring at the Feraliagtr's back, if there was one thing he hated more than anything it was someone writing him off as weak. The little Riolu puffed up his chest and clenched his fist, small flames of passion erupted in his eyes. He was just as strong as the Feraligatr! And he would prove it by beating the bigger pokemon in combat! A foolproof idea…as if the overgrown lizard stood a chance!

The Feraligatr had gone down on one knee and appeared to be scooping water into its clawed hand to scrub at its eyes. Bah, it mattered not what the enemy was doing. Inox charged at the blue scaled giant, black foot paws pounding the ground he leapt and landed a kick on the feraligatr's haunch. Dropping back elegantly on one foot-paw he smirked, that should have left a dent. However his smirked dropped rather quickly when the Feraligatr continued cleaning its eyes out. It hadn't even felt the attack! (A credit to both Tess's insane training techniques: put the pokemon through hell and they won't react to anything less and the rather tough hide of a Feraligatr.) Inox clenched his fists, balancing on one foot-paw. Well then, he would just have to hit harder. He began to execute a series of fast kicks and punches all aimed at the same point on the Feraligatr's back leg. Something had to get through.

---Monty Vision----

_Damn mud, can't see a damn thing. Stupid Omi and his stupid mud shot attack, why can't he hit someone else for once? Next time he pulls that shit, gunna play basketball with his shell, the bastard. Forget this water splashing cleaning, not doing a damn thing. Just dunk head in water, problem solved. _He felt an itch on his back leg, and flicked his tail reflexively to deal with the problem, attention not even wavering from his short mental rant at Omi.

---End Monty Vision---

Inox was so preoccupied with pounding away at the blue scaled hide in-front of him that he did not see the large tail swing toward him until it had knocked him off his feet, sending him tumbling head over paw backwards. He regained his footing shakily. So a frontal physical attack wasn't working eh? Fine, he'd just have to pull out the big guns then. He jumped back, as a faint black and purple outline covered one of his fists. When the outline had manifested black purple rimmed claws he dashed forward using his momentum to add more power to his hit he prepared to strike.

Coatsy had been trying valiantly for past few minutes to get to Inox and stop him from getting in over his head. However her body wasn't designed for speed or even real travel. She was designed to sit in one spot and _stay_ there for long amounts of time, chasing after younger, cocky pokemon was not in that description. Oh dear, Inox had charged up a shadow claw, this would probably get ugly. Coatsy attempted to speed herself up. Inox would need her soon, she wouldn't be of much use against a water pokemon, but she would be able to provide cover for Inox to get help.

Monty, oblivious to the approaching pint-sized attacker, pulled his head out of the water as he stretched to his full height and shook himself like a dog. Water-droplets flew everywhere. The vision restricting mud gone he could see the clear lake waters and beautiful blue sky. Yes, today would be a good day Monty decided. He was going to sit back and bask in the shallows of the lake. Maybe scare a few magikarp that got too close. That sorta thing, a nice calm day. Just as Monty was crouching down to enter the lake, Inox's shadow claw hit with a terrific show of purple sparks.

Monty staggered to the side, more out of surprise then any real injury. Inox, now that the large obstacle between him and the lake had been removed, wasn't quite able to stop his headlong dash. He slipped on the mud and lake grass on the bank, with the result of him having a close encounter of the face kind with the lake shallows complete with a medium sized splash of muddy water. Inox slowly pushed himself into a sitting position dizzily shaking his head. He was covered in mud with lake grass and seaweed twined around his limbs. He also sported some new bruises from the lake rocks and scratches from a well placed thistle plant.

As he sat in the shallows picking the weeds off and scraping mud out of his fur, a menacing shadow fell over him. Inox slowly looked up into the rather furious visage of Monty now newly splattered with lake side mud from Inox's rather abrupt slippery dash through the lake's muddy bank. Inox counted the white fangs showing in the gaping mouth and suddenly wondered about the wisdom of trying to get the Feraligatr's full attention. Then he shook himself, stood up on his paws and squared his shoulders. He had the fight he had been looking for now, no use complaining just because his combatant looked a tad bit angry, he could take him, anger made one make stupid mistakes after all. A clawed hand shot out, grabbing Inox and lifting him up face level with Monty so angry red-eyes were staring into wide brown ones. O…kay, apparently this Feraligatr didn't make stupid mistakes when angry. The hand was big enough to wrap around his entire torso, pinning his arms to his sides and those eyes did not look only 'a tad' angry, they looked like the reincarnation of anger. But that was fine as long as Inox could free his arm for an attack he was sure he could take on the beast. After all, his shadow claw had severely weakened the brute….well after a second look his attack had only slightly scratched the tough armor like skin. Well damn.

Monty was not in a good mood. A few minutes ago he had perhaps for the second or third time in his life since evolving into a Feraligatr been on the edge of being if not happy then at least somewhat calm. No training, no enemy pokemon or trainer needing to get beat down and his own trainer was relatively relaxed herself. But then, just as he was about to admit to himself that yes indeed, it was time for a quick break, maybe even a nap, some little punk baby pokemon had attacked him! Out of nowhere, Monty might add. Kids, no respect for their elders these days, if he had tried something like that with Man O' War when _he_ was that age…well he doubted he would have made _to_ a Feraligatr.(It had entirely escaped Monty's notice that 'the punk baby pokemon' had been attacking him for the better part of 15 minutes.) Monty growled low in his throat as he surveyed his now mud-splattered appearance. Great, just great, first Omi and now this…kid. Well he was angry and he wasn't going to take it anymore and he certainly didn't care if he sounded like a whiny teenager in his own head! He reached down and grabbed the luckless Riolu.

Coasty silently cursed she wasn't close enough yet and that Feraligatr wasn't about to just lecture Inox, put him down on the ground and send him on his way. It looked like the Feraligatr was about to tear him apart. Time for desperate measures, she quickly pulled all her limbs and head inside her shell. The red shell bounced in the air, turned on its side, began to rotate and sped off toward the Feraligatr.

Monty was snarling as he lifted Inox up and prepared to finish him off with a seismic toss. Coatsy's rotating shell hit Monty on the upper arm barely doing any damage but causing him divert his attention from Inox to her, as she veered off and came back around spinning faster. Monty narrowed his eyes, focusing on the red spinning shell but not slackening his grasp on the now struggling Riolu. As the shell bounced in the air to hit him a second time he whipped his tail around, smacking the spinning Coatsy and managing to divert the shell back to the ground where it continued spinning faster heading back toward him.

Inox struggled hard in Monty's iron grip. If only he could free a paw he could fight back. Coatsy's third rollout was quicker getting through Monty's defensive moves to land a direct hit in his ribcage. But the attack was not powered up enough to do anything more than add to Monty's growing anger. Inox wriggled his shoulders if he didn't find some way to help, Coatsy would be toast. He kicked his foot-paws hard against Monty's arm. Waaaiiittt….he could still kick his foot-paws.

Monty showed his teeth in a feral grin as he tracked the rolling shell with his eyes. He bent his knees slightly to better receive the next blow. A quick catch and a toss into the lake would end this battle. The shell jumped in the air to hit in the chest, before Monty could react, a sudden arc of flames erupted from the hand which held Inox. Surprised Monty dropped the Riolu on his tail, Coatsy slammed into the now exposed chest. The attack now on power-up four actually forced Monty to take a few steps back, clutching at the now spreading bruise from the hit.

Inox now freed, jumped on top of Coatsy's spinning shell, sprinting in place with prefect balance, a shadow claw charging on his left fist. Monty still recovering from the first hit didn't see this double attack coming. Inox leapt off Coatsy, using the momentum to ramp up his shadow claw. He slashed the shadow claw across Monty's snout. This time he scored several deep marks. Monty brought his claws up to his muzzle to stop the dripping blood, Coatsy was right behind Inox powered up to fifth level. Her rollout attack hit home into Monty's un-blocked stomach, knocking the wind out of him.

Inox had landed several feet back, balanced once again on his back paw, front paws brought up into fists, battle ready, as Coatsy's spinning shell stopped next to him. Coatsy pulled herself out also battle ready. Monty coughed harshly as he regained his breath; he turned his attention back to the two, eyes red from berserk rage. He stood to his full height, towering over the two smaller and weaker pokemon. Monty clacked his claws together menacingly, his tail thumped heavily against the ground, his chest expanded as he took in a huge breath and opened his mouth to release what would have been an incredible roar. Would have been, if not for the sudden appearance of a long brown tentacle that had wrapped itself around Monty's mouth, snapping it shut. The incredible roar came out as a confused and frustrated squeak.

Man O' War had surfaced near the edge of the lake, at Monty's squeak he twisted the feraliagtr's head around so he was now looking at Tess, stretched out fast asleep with her book covering her face as she snored. Monty's eyes got wide as the noise from his fight caused her to shift, twisting and turning on the beach towel before she settled back down, smacking her lips loudly under the book one arm had pulled Bedazzle to her side like a teddy bear. Both Man O' War and Monty let out deep sighs of relief, Man O' unwrapped his tentacle from Monty's maw. Inox and Coatsy looked at each other and then back at the other two with twin confused expressions. Monty shrugged, having lost the drive to continue the fight now that his trainer's nap time was on the line, he stomped over to the lake edge and slunk into the water.

Coatsy breathed her own sigh of relief, tripping Inox as he made to go after the Feraligatr to continue the fight. He had barely stood a chance against the pokemon on land with her as back-up, the feraligatr had only been playing with them and their attacks had only made the situation worse. He would have _no_ chance at all if he tried to fight that Feraligatr in the water, especially with the feraligatr's ally sitting there daring them to make a move. Inox doggedly got to his fight determined to see the fight through, even as the other party swam further out in the lake. He marched into the shallows. No way some overgrown lizard was going to get the best of him! And that stupid glaring jellyfish didn't scare him one bit! Coatsy had no idea what to do, she wouldn't be able to get any help and she couldn't follow Inox into the water either. She was debating what to do when a cheerful yell cut through her scattered thoughts.

"Coooooaaaaatsy! Innnnoooox!" Inox halted in his one pokemon march to doom. "Come on guys! We gotta get going!" Inox cocked an ear, water swirling around his paws. "The next eating contest is in thirty minutes, we gotta start setting up!" Coasty turned toward the voice and let out a high cheerful whistle letting their trainer know where they were. Inox climbed out of the water to stand next to Coatsy as their young rotund trainer ambled over to them wearing a bright sunny smile that matched the smiley face on his blue T-shirt, Santabag the delibird walking along beside him hmming to himself absently. Ben, their trainer patted Inox and Coatsy on the head. "What're you guys doing over here? Playing in the mud?" Inox shook the remaining mud off of himself to his trainer's loud protests. Coatsy looked out at the lake one last time as she and Inox were returned to their pokeballs but the feraligatr and the large tentacruel had vanished from sight.

---Later that Evening----

"Geez Monty." Tess said as she surveyed the gashes on Monty's muzzle. He was lying on the ground in front of her whimpering and playing up his 'wounds' for a bit of extra attention as she ran her hands lightly around them. "You really know how to get into a fight anywhere don't you?" She finished inspecting the wounds for dirt or signs of infections and patted Monty on the head. "Hope you gave the pokemon what for right?" Monty let out a deep sigh as in the lake water Man O' War was suddenly surrounded by a froth of bubbles. His version of laughing. Monty would have won the battle…if he had finished an attack.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Who's that Pokémon: Nidorina, this one was fun for me 'cause you had to pay attention to a previous chapter. I mean Rica and Rico? They are obviously made for each other.

-I was reading through the profiles of ocs you guys sent me, originally I was going to go in order from who sent what but then I got jumped by so many great ideas, I couldn't keep them all straight. So now I'm just going to go by what I feel like. Don't worry, I have story outlines for most if not all the current ocs and requests which means that you guys should be seeing a lot from me in the near future!

-Quality of who's that Pokémon might go down a bit here, since some of them will be your own Pokémon or ideas for battles but eh, if you know it, keep it on the DL for those who don't.

-Inox and Coatsy are from Belhotte's oc Ben. Hope you like how I characterized them!

-Next up request battle! So watch for that in the coming week,

~Illusion Factory


	10. Request Battle: Paul Gets Owned

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Request battle from Legendary Fairy, hope you like! Oh Mike, you are such an old man trapped in an 18 year olds body.

I started this as a one-on-one but halfway through a voice said make it three on three so it took a bit longer.

* * *

Mike's eye twitched. It had started out as a not bad day but not a good day. He had decided that today would be spent in training, so Mike had taken his Pokémon out to a training ground near the city. It had had the potential to be a good day, Rica's attack strength was improving and Tosten's speed was shaping up nicely. Then these two _kids_ had shown up. Annoying kids, loud kids, kids who just wouldn't shut. up.

"I don't have the time for you right now." This was said by one of the kids, the purple haired one, in a condescending tone. Mike had to wonder how the kid had made it this far in life without someone throttling him. He shook his head and tried to turn his attention back to his training. Tosten was a lavender blur busily dodging around a salvo of poison sting launched by Rica. The second kid, who was sporting a red and black hat with a blue pokeball symbol, made Mike's attempt at an attention redirect impossible.

"Whaddya mean by that!" Mike's eye twitched again. That voice! Dear lord! It was like nails on a chalkboard, cutting through the air. And oh so loud! How did anybody stand it?

"I don't have to explain myself to you. You are weak." The hat wearing kid's Pikachu began to leak sparks at that proclamation. Mike just rolled his eyes before trying once again to get back into the training. Kids, if they spent even half the time training then they did trying to one-up the other they would have already been much stronger than their rival. Rica finished her poison sting, Tosten landing on his paws having managed to dodge them all. Of course now he was panting heavily, his purple split tail held arched over his body.

"I'm not weak!" Mike finally just gave up he motioned for Rica and Tosten to stand down. Rica plopped herself by the wooden posts while Tosten walked primly over to her and settled elegantly on his stomach, tail moving about like a cat's, wide unblinking eyes taking in everything around him. Mike just sighed, around him the argument between the two kids was heating up. It was only added to by the fact that the hat kid's two friends, a blue haired girl and, surprisingly, the Pewter City gym leader Brock, had shown up. Mike bore the increasing in volume argument for just few more seconds before he finally snapped.

"Will you guys just SHUT! UP!" Immediately all noise in the clearing ceased, all attention was turned to the previously un-noticed and ignored trainer. Mike growled, grabbed the purple haired boy by his shoulder and roughly dragged him a decent distance away from the hat kid. Leaving the shocked boy at one end of the clearing he stalked to the center point between the two kids, Tosten and Rica keeping an eye on all the people in the clearing. "Settle this like trainers. Three-on-three, first with two knock-outs wins, as an impartial I'll ref. Now get going!" Mike snapped, folding his arms across his chest. Startled into action by Mike's sharp tone, both trainers were rather dazedly flinging out their choice pokeballs.

"Honchkrow go!"

"Grotle I chose you!" (I could not resist the catchphrase) Mike just glared as the bright red flashes resolved themselves into their respective Pokémon: A large dark blue almost black bird and a heavy green-brown turtle. The bird immediately took to the sky, flapping its mighty wings, sending clouds of dust and grass into air of the clearing. Mike's two Pokémon hunkered down closer to each other, Tosten's long whiskers whipped in the sudden whirlwind.

"Grotle energy ball!" The bushes on the turtle-like pokemon's shell began to glow and a green swirling ball of energy formed in front of its mouth. Purple haired kid was not about to just let his opponent take the first move.

"Honchkrow aerial ace!" The bird shot up further into the air, then arched downward streams of white light surrounding him. Grotle fired the green energy ball at the quickly descending Honchkrow but the attack was useless as the Honchkrow powered through it and continued on. The Grotle hunched in on itself using its shell as a shield. The powerful aerial ace landed with a huge explosion of dust and wind. Tension was high on hat-kid's end of the field until the dust cleared and Mike ever the observant one made the call.

"Looks like Grotle is knocked-out, win to purple-hair over there." Mike studiously ignored the 'My name is Paul!' exclamation as the hat kid recalled his Grotle with softly spoken praise and continued:"Well, what's your next pick hat-kid?" He also ignored the blue haired girl's proclamation: 'His name is Ash!'

"Monferno go get 'em!" A medium sized red-orange ape with a flaming tail appeared on the field. The purpled haired kid took the lead this time calling out the first attack to his hovering bird pokemon.

"Honchkrow sky attack!" The huge bird glowed a bright silver white and dove out of the air toward the Monferno. The Monferno was paying careful attention to the quickly descending Honchkrow but didn't seem overly worried. His trainer didn't seem worried either. Just as the Honchkrow was about to hit the hat kid began to snap out commands.

"Dodge it and use a close range flamethrower!" The monferno nimbly skipped to the side of the Honchkrow who barreled into the ground with the loss of his target. The monferno's quick dodge caused the purple haired trainer to gasp as the monkey opened his mouth and released a great spurt of orange-yellow flame. Honchkrow was already off-balance trying to pick himself off the ground, the flamethrower caught and engulfed the grounded Pokémon completely. "Don't let your guard down! Get some distance Monferno!" The red-orange furred Pokémon quickly leapt backwards in a series of back flips. The purple-haired trainer seemed to recover from his sudden surprise and was already working on a counter-attack. His Honchkrow regained his footing but his wings looked far too burnt or singed to carry the large Pokémon back into the air for long lengths of time. That was one advantage neatly taken away.

"Night slash, don't let him get away!" The plump bird launched himself across the clearing, one wing glowing a sickly purple. Mike had to admit as the Honchkrow sped toward the Monferno, that the purple-haired guy at least had some decently strong Pokémon. He winced in spite of himself as the Monferno danced aside and the Honchkrow ate dirt for the second time, creating a small crater where he landed, now if only he could get one of those super charged attacks to hit. Though Mike shrugged, the flying debris from that crater had given the Monferno a few scratches and gashes. Mike would bet that the kid spent most of his time developing his Pokémon's strength instead of say…accuracy or speed.

Both of which would have come in handy during this fight, Mike sighed as another flamethrower engulfed the bird and the Monferno flipped backwards getting distance again. At least the Monferno was, well not as high powered as the Honchkrow, had decent speed, agility and accuracy on his side. Manipulated correctly the Monferno could easily take down the more powerful Honchkrow. The hat kid was using the monferno's speed and agility to his advantage but had yet to really bring the Monferno's power to bear. The flamethrowers were wearing down the Honchkrow but one or two hits from the bird Pokémon would bring the monkey down.

"Honchkrow stop fooling around and letting that weakling get the best of you." The purple haired trainer was really starting to get annoyed…with his Pokémon. Mike tapped a finger impatiently against his arm. It was his personal belief that the failings of a Pokémon reflected those of the trainer. And that in a losing battle situation, you should mark what needed improvement to work on at a later date. "Night slash again!"

"Now Monferno flame wheel counter-shield!" The hat-kids two companions suddenly looked both shocked and excited while the purple haired kid had a confused expression on his face before impassive superiority took over. Interesting. The bird readied himself for a second night slash while across the way the monferno leapt into the air curling into a ball as the flame on his tail flared, covering the curled ape Pokémon. The Honchkrow, wing turned purple flew toward the now spinning ball of flame, before the Honchkrow could land the attack a bunch of flame whips exploded from the spinning ball. Well….that was new. The flame whips gave the Honchkrow no space to maneuver around, the purple-haired kid ground his teeth together as the honchkrow thudded on the ground in-front of him, wisps of smoke curling off of his singed feathers. Eyes swirls. Mike leaned forward and to the side, arms clasped behind his back peering intently at the Honchkrow as the Monferno pulled out of his flame wheel.

"Honchkrow's down for the count, hat kid-"

"His name IS ASH!" Was heard from the sidelines.

"-takes the win. Purple hair-" The kid actually growled at Mike who was still ignoring name corrections. "-proceed to the next battler."

"Whoa! Monferno!" Mike turned his attention away from the knocked-out pokemon and his trainer to the monkey pokemon. The monferno was glowing a bright white light that covered him. Well look at that, the little ape was evolving. The small outline of the Monferno blurred and shifted becoming taller, slimmer and more dangerous looking. The white light faded leaving behind a large red-orange monkey with a brilliant flame on his head. Regal looking white fur covered his torso and face which provided contrast for the bright red muzzle and eye brows. Gold arm, leg and chest bands decorated his body. "You evolved into Infernape!" Mike re-crossed his arms.

"Yo! Let's keep things moving here! Gawk later!" Mike rather impatient shout brought the purple-haired kid out of his slightly stunned silence.

"Weavile finish this!" The dark blue and red pokemon screeched as it appeared, flexing its claws. "Use metal claw!" The weavile dashed toward Infernape bringing its claws, now turned white with power, up preparing to slash.

"We got this Infernape! Dodge and use mach punch!" The taller pokemon somersaulted over the Weavile, even using its head as a springboard. The Weavile was pushed into the ground, metal claws causing small chunks of earth to fly through the air. The Infernape twirled on a single back foot, fists glowing blue. He used the momentum of the twirl to add to the mach punch's power hitting the weavile squarely in the side. The Weavile let out a shriek as it flew through the air from the force of the punch. Eyes closed tightly it slammed into the ground skidding across the surface.

"Weavile use blizzard!" The weavile pulled itself up enough to let a strong icy wind out of its mouth. The wintery wind caught the infernape head-on. The strong winds caused the fire monkey to crouch down and protect his face. The blizzard proved mostly ineffective as the flame on Infernapes head blazed stronger than ever. But it had given the weavile enough to time recover from the mach punch, just in time for it to struck down by another impressive mach punch. At least hat-kid knew how to use type to his advantage. Though the kid still had a pretty choppy battle style, letting the opponent re-group like that.

"Weavile, use another metal claw and this time it better hit!" Mike snorted, yeah 'cause threatening your pokemon like that always worked and really? An ice type vs. a fire type? Honestly? Poor thing was doomed from the start. The weavile clambered to its feet, shaking its head a few times trying to get its bearings back. Hat kid wasn't about to let that happen though.

"Infernape! Flamethrower!"The monkey bounded towards the Weavile, who was just gathering itself up for a metal claw, hooting the entire time. The weavile had finally pulled itself together enough for the attack, claws glowing it charged at the oncoming infernape. In return the infernape opened his mouth allowing a great jet of flame to strike the weavile in the face. The weavile doggedly continued through the stream of fire to land the metal claw. Three long gashes slashed across the Infernape's chest, the attack finished, the weavile collapsed to the ground entirely spent while the infernape jumped back, pressing a hand to the bleeding wounds. Mike decided after the weavile hadn't so much as twitched that he had better make a call.

"Annnd weavile is not going to be getting up anytime soon. So I'm declaring hat kid"

"For the last time! His name is ASH!!!!" The girl screamed from the sidelines, ah kids, so easy to rile up these days.

"-the winner, Mazel tov. Now get the hell out of here so I can do some training." Purple haired kid looked positively livid as he turned and stormed away before the other kids had even noticed. Great that was one brat down, three more to go.

"That was awesome Infernape! You were great!" The hat kid, his Pikachu and his friends were gathered around the fire monkey congratulating him. The infernape looked positively bashful as he rubbed a hand behind his head, blushing profusely. Mike looked over to his own two pokemon, his nidorinia Rica looked to be fast asleep despite the intense battle and slight property damage. Tosten was sitting up flicking the two ended tail over his front paws, red forehead jewel flashing in the sunlight. Mike looked back over to the celebrating group, they were probably going to be here for a while. The girl had produced a hyper potion and now the Infernape was as good as new. He rubbed his hands over his face several times groaning. Dropping his hands to his sides he looked up at the blue sky with a very put upon expression. Tosten nudged Rica waking her up mid-snore. Finally it seemed that Mike had reached a decision.

"Screw it, let's go find someplace to eat." He grumbled stalking past the still happily celebrating group, Tosten and Rica trotting after him. And he had had such plans for training too!

* * *

Author's Notes:

-It is my personal opinion that Gary, as Ash's original and most awesome rival, should appear in the anime and show Paul how it's done. He has seniority after-all, it's only fair. And I hate writing for Paul.

-I don't mean to make Mike seem Mary-sueish or extremely powerful and holier-than-thou here. I just needed someone to point out openings in both Paul and Ash's battle, so it would even out. Besides, Mike's character is much older than both of them and one would expect, more experienced as well.

-In case it wasn't clear, Tosten is the mystery Pokémon so pay attention to his descriptions.

-I have a busy week next week so I might not get to update, but I will try.

~Illusion-Factory


	11. The Wonders of Wonderguard

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Time for everyone's favorite duo: Connor and Tess! They're back to being slightly younger than normal, circa: 14-15 years old, so they don't have their full teams yet…and Connor's a rather pathetic trainer still, but he tries, oh how he tries.

* * *

"Shin, silver wind!"

"Beat use spark!" The flying insect had already taken several hard hits and the sharp electric charge knocked him right out of the sky. "Oh yeah! Who's the best trainer now Connie? I do believe it's me!" Her small pokemon added to her statement as he shot out a few more sparks with a deranged smirk. Tess grinned as Connor hung his head, he had not been in the finest form today. She almost felt bad about crushing him…almost but not really. He had managed to take down the rest of her team, Beat Nic being the only pokemon left to her, but she was pretty sure that Shin had been his last. Also Connor had more pokemon then her. Compared to the fighting prowess of his brother and her Connor was really struggling along. She knew that she should probably be more sympathetic to his plight. But after that bucket of cold water at five am(Which had totally ruined her new hair for the day)he was going down! And in flames, er sparks if she could help it! Which it looked like she had! Woot! Mission accomplished! Bad hair day revenged! Wait no…false alarm, the jerk had one more pokemon left. Well, Beat was still fresh. He could deal with any problems. Beat's small blue body twitched as an errant electric charge ran across his two antenna. Tess shook her head, face in hand, correction: He could deal with any problems provided he kept his rampant insanity in check.

Connor recalled Shin grimly. That was it for him, end game. He only had this weird pokemon left and lord knew, it didn't have much hp to go on something he would need in a fight with Tess the heavy hitter. Connor supposed it was his entire fault in a way, he wasn't yet set enough in his style to really take on Tess normally, but after that slight *ahem* prank this morning, she was ready to tear him a new one, which she had and with great joy. He held his last pokemon's pokeball in his hand and with the sigh of man knowing he was about to get trashed, tossed it unenthusiastically out onto the field. Calling out equally unenthusiastically:

"Go Obi." The pokeball bounced once or twice and then spat out a flash of red light. The light resolved itself into a tan and gray levitating pokemon. Tess raised an eyebrow, Connor covered his eyes with one hand, Beat flipped his little fins excitedly and the new pokemon moved up and down in its levitation, humming to itself.

"Really Connor? What the hell is that thing?" Tess demanded, eyeing the thing for any sudden moves. Connor blushed and mumbled something. "What?! I didn't quite catch that!" She shouted over to him.

"I said: I don't KNOW!" Connor roared back finally dropping his hand. Tess threw her hands up in the air.

"How the hell could you not know?! It's your pokemon!" Connor balled his fists at his side.

"Because I don't! It just showed up when Shin evolved! And why are we yelling? You're only a few feet from me." Tess appeared to think for a few seconds, tapping her chin with her pointer finger before whipping the same finger to point at him.

"Doesn't matter! Beat use spark again!" Her twitchy pokemon pushed himself off of his rock perch with stubby blue feet. The long blue antennas suddenly came alive with jolts of electricity centered from the yellow globes at the tips. The tiny jolts of electricity were forming into a bigger ball in front of Beat and when he felt, for whatever reason, that the ball was big enough, he released it. Landing on the ground he smirked as the medium sized ball streaked toward the floating pokemon.

Connor had screwed his eyes shut, if he was going to be beaten embarrassingly, he didn't want to see it happen. Honestly he didn't know how he managed to get Tess so riled up all the time. It was just a harmless prank.

Tess was smug, sure she had entered this battle at a disadvantage or two but with her amazing trainer skills she pulled out a win. Let this be a lesson to all other boy trainers out there: Throwing water on her at 5am and therefore as a direct result having her hair frizz out beyond all belief would end in a bloody and humiliating beat down. She clenched a fist, smiling dangerously, teeth glinting as the spark attack was launched. Connor's pokemon didn't seem overly troubled by the flying ball of sparking danger zooming toward it. In fact it continued humming to itself. Tess decided that it was just stupid.

Connor crouched down, hands clamped over his ears, waiting for the inevitable explosion that would be his last pokemon going down. Only it never came. Connor waited a few more seconds surely he would have felt _something_ by now? He cautiously removed a hand from his ear…nope still nothing. He slowly opened an eye. The sight that met him warranted jumping straight to his feet. There was his pokemon still levitating, humming to itself and looking completely un-harmed! Halle-freaking-lujah! This proved that someone somewhere was watching out for him! Connor mentally went over his deity list, thanking every one individually and by name.

Tess was the picture of shock, slouching forward as her arms hung toward the ground, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. Beat Nic looked completely confused, twitching every now and then from the occasional electric spark as he twittered questioningly to himself. Tess managed to pull herself together while Connor had finished thanking human deities and moved onto pokemon deities starting with Mew.

"Try a water gun Beat." She ordered. Maybe this weird Pokémon was immune to electric attacks, which wouldn't be unusual, just Connor never had the brains to get a pokemon like that. Though…she glanced at Connor now moved from deities to lucky numbers and stars by the look of things, it was probably just sheer dumb luck. Besides she was not about to let the injustice of having to wear her hair up underneath her knit beanie be un-avenged. Beat sensing his trainer's wrath coming back took in a deep breath inflating his little blue balloon-like body to the bursting point. When he was floating a few inches off the ground he spat out an impressive stream of water.

Connor had worked his way through all the deities, stars and numbers he could possibly think of. But he had missed the fact that Tess was attacking. Thus when he looked up and saw the powerful water gun headed his and his pokemon's way, his reaction was forgivable…somewhat.

"Holy!" He shrieked in a high-pitched voice, immediately collapsing into a protective crouch. Obi did nothing, still waiting on a battle command it continued humming absent mindedly. The water gun ended much like the spark attack, fizzling out without even touching the floating pokemon. This time though, Connor saw it happen, leaping to his feet excitedly. "Obi you are the greatest!" The floating pokemon hummed in agreement as Tess's exclamation came from across the field.

"What the Hell?! What is that thing?!" She screamed, Beat squeaked angrily in agreement. It wasn't fair that his most favorite attacks didn't work! He twitched as he emitted a big spark of electricity due to his frustration. "Spark it again Beat! Maybe that was just a fluke!" Beat began charging up another spark attack. Connor decided to finally get into the almost one-sided battle.

"Obi! Giga Drain!" Tess stamped a foot in annoyance as the tell-tale green glow of giga drain took a big chunk of Beat Nic's health points, his spark attack again having fizzled out before contact. Connor punched the air with both fists. "Yes! I might just make it out of this alive! One more giga drain should do it Obi!" Beat let out a horrible screech, the green glow sucking the remaining life points out of him and toppled into the dust of the road. Tess recalled him to his pokeball and sighed, it looked liked she'd have to do things the old fashioned way. She pulled out a pair of blue and green trimmed fingerless gloves. As Connor was celebrating his near death miss with his new favorite pokemon she tugged the gloves on, flexing her fingers. Once she was satisfied with the fit she began to walk very deliberately toward Connor. She was a girl on a mission.

Connor happily hugging and nuzzling Obi was suddenly aware of his sixth sense tingling. He quickly looked over to see Tess advancing in such a way that suggested equal parts pain and blood should she reach him. He let out a frightened sqwak and took off running, dragging Obi behind by its halo. Tess continued her unhurried approach, she was patient, she would catch-up eventually and then there would be much apologizing and pleading on his part.

Connor en-route to the forest edge was flat out running. But a rock abruptly halted his progress into the forest when it decided to catch his toe. Connor's own momentum prevented him from regaining his balance, he tripped and would have become fast friends with the ground had not a tree beat the ground to it. Once again Connor's built up momentum ensured that: 1.) he hit the tree face first resulting in an extremely bloody nose 2.) he knocked himself out and 3.) he swung Obi, who he was still holding by the halo, around and also into the tree with enough force to knock the poor pokemon out. The two crumpled side-by-side in front of the friendly but not so conveniently placed tree, out cold.

Tess stood over them, hands on hips, frown firmly in place. Well, this was no fun. The idiot had deprived her the pleasure of beating him senseless. She sighed, nothing else for it she thought, bending down to fiddle with the pokeballs attached to Connor's belt she came up with Obi's empty pokeball and returned the KO'd pokemon to it. Next she reached down and hoisted Connor's deadweight over her shoulder, she staggered a little but then got used to his weight. At least the town wasn't too far away and Mike would be there. If anyone could tell her about Connor's new pokemon it would be Mike.

---Pokemon Center Later that Evening---

Connor had awoken to a raging headache and of course a blood-clotted nose. The first thing he did was grab for the last pokeball on the table left to his bed. Time to solve this mystery once and for all. The flash of red released the floating pokemon, now fully healed into the room. Connor fumbled in his backpack yanking out his pokedex and to his embarrassment, a few pairs of boxers. Hastily stuffing those back in his bag, he flipped open the pokedex.

"Shedinja, the Shed Pokémon. Shedinja posesses a hard, powerful body giving it strong defenses."(1.) Well that wasn't a good explanation! What about the way the attacks never seemed to hit?! What about-An amused voice cut through his mental ranting.

"It's called wonderguard goofball." Arrg, he _knew _that voice! Connor looked up almost giving himself whiplash and another bleeding nose. Mike and Tess were seated at a table to the right of his bed, remains of fast food littered around them. Mike was leaning back in his chair so only two feet were on the ground, a French fry held between the forefinger and thumb. He was watching Connor with amusement, next to him Tess was chewing on the tip of her straw as she turned the pages of a fashion magazine, the section she was on seemed to be the hair-care part. Connor stared blankly at his twin. "It means that if the attack isn't super effective it won't do damage." Ooooohhhhhh…that made sense. "Oh Nurse Joy wants you to stay put, no going out and you have blood all over the front of your shirt." Mike said calmly going back to eating his fries.

Connor squeaked and looked down at his shirt. It was indeed covered in the brownish-rust color of dried blood, he picked at it. It had been his one of his few traveling shirts, bloodstains this big would never come out completely. To make matters worse his stomach decided that now would be a good time to complain about being empty. He wrapped his arms around his stomach and squeezed his eyes shut. He hated being a complete klutz, it wasn't fair! Connor gasped suddenly as a weight dropped into his lap, gentle humming reaching his ears. Obi had decided that its trainer needed some cheering up and who better than itself? Connor smiled awkwardly and patted the Shedinja on the head, which made it hum louder, pleased with itself.

"Here" Something lightweight and soft was dropped over his head. Connor pulled the object off and stared at it. It was a brown shirt, much like the one he had just bled all over. "Picked that up for ya while Tess was getting the food." His brother informed him as Tess at the mention of her name tossed a wrapped burger at him, he managed to catch it before it hit him, not looking up from an article that had caught her attention. Connor stared at the food in one hand, the shirt in the other and Obi's neutral face in his lap. It was kinda creepy the way Obi didn't ever change expression or blink…

"Well don't just sit there! Eat the damn thing!" Tess snapped from her chair, back to flipping the pages. Connor jolted as though he had been shocked, hastily dropping the shirt onto the bed and unwrapping the burger. "Gawd! You're so damn short it's no wonder if you don't eat!"

"Hey!" Connor protested through a mouthful of food swallowing quickly he continued. "I'm not short! I'm the same height as Mike!" Mike passed him one of the cups of soda, which he almost drained with one slurp. Obi had shifted so it could watch the interaction between all three trainers and seemed for most part to be enjoying what it saw.

"Yeah right. Face it Connie, you're the shrimp of the group. But at least you have interesting boxers. Were those Piplup printed ones I saw?" Soda spurted out of Connor's mouth at that and he blushed a fierce scarlet. Mike snickered. Connor was already yelling a retort. Fighting between Connor and Tess could go on all night, he grinned, man was this going to be fun! Better then watching TV at any rate.

* * *

Author's Notes:

(1) This is the exact wording from May's pokedex. I used the anime one instead of the game ones because it fit what Connor was looking for better than the other pokedex entries from the game. Don't expect the anime or manga to show up too much though. I'm trying to keep it original. ^^

-Who's that Pokémon: Tosten is an espeon and Coatsy from chapter nine is a shuckle. Beat Nic is the mystery pokemon here not Obi.

- I think the timeline for Pokémon training in the anime is a joke, so my characters are going to take a bit longer to train their Pokémon up, (thus Clover being a Bayleef when Connor is 13) and collect their respective six Pokémon teams…it has nothing to do with the fact that I haven't finalized anyone but Tess's team yet, none what so ever.

-This battle came out of a suggestion from Fire Drastar involving someone fighting a shedinja and not knowing about wonderguard. I took that a step further to both the shedinja's trainer and the challenger not knowing about wonderguard.

-Most of my Connor vs. Tess matches revolves around how many different ways I can work in Connor getting a bloody nose. It's a morbid perverse hobby I've started to develop, I don't know why I torture the poor guy so.

~Illusion-Factory


	12. Crashing In Like I Own the Place

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

_Italics_=psychic speaking.

Back to the normal ages now, i.e. 18 years old. Mike seems to spend a lot of time just walking around random towns and cities…he's like a wandering Dues ex Mechina.

* * *

Well Mike had to admit, Veilstone wasn't that bad of a place to spend some down time. In fact it was quite nice. His Pokémon had enjoyed themselves romping around in the forest nearby. Man it had to be at least four or five _years_ since he had last been here. Of course that had been a strictly gym business call and he hadn't really stayed to enjoy the town. Speaking of the gym, there it was coming into view now. Mike mentally compared it to his memories: it looked like they had repaired and replaced the west wall. That was good; Mike still got a slight twinge of guilt for that extreme case of damage every now and then. Ex had just evolved and Mike still hadn't got used to the sheer amount of power Ex had gained. A sudden bout of commotion coming from the front of the gym made him stop and squint. There were three people racing toward him.

Actually it was more like two people, a man and a woman, racing in his general direction, with the third, a girl, chasing after them. As the front pair drew even with Mike he calmly stuck out his foot, tripping the slower of the two. The man went down, hard, as he fell he reached out a hand and brought the woman down with him. The air was filled with much cursing and yelling as the two fought to untangle themselves before the girl could catch-up. Mike was calmly observing the pair, hands in pockets. Their silver and black uniforms with the yellow G's on the front looked vaguely familiar but for the life of him he couldn't remember where he had seen it before… (1)

"YOU!" This was said with a level of venom that would have made Tess jealous. Mike looked at the delicately painted nail that was pointed right in his face and then to the woman it was attached to. She had managed to untangle herself from her companion but hadn't yet climbed to her feet. If looks could kill Mike would have been dead and buried at least twelve feet underground by the force of her glare. Fortunately glares couldn't do that and so Mike merely raised an eyebrow, he was pretty sure he had never met this lady before.

"Can I help you?" Mike inquired. This only made the woman angrier. She got to her feet finger still pointed resolutely in Mike's face.

"You ruined my life and you don't even have the good grace to remember my NAME!" She screeched. By now the man had also regained his feet, he tugged on the woman's arm.

"Ma'am we have to go! That girl is going to-" Before he could even finish his sentence the third runner came skidding to a halt next to Mike a black Umbreon following at her heels.

"You better give that pokeball back! I'm not going to give you another chance!" The Umbreon hissed and spat at the two thieves. Mike glanced to the side, studying the new arrival. The girl was taller than him, six feet if he was any judge against his own five foot seven. But she certainly looked younger and not as powerful as he would have expected. Oh well, he could cross his fingers and hope she was more powerful than she looked or else he would just have to take these two jokers on himself. He still didn't know what that woman wanted with him.

"Oh no!" The woman it seemed hadn't even registered her companion's warning or the girl's arrival, still focused on Mike. She waved her finger in his face before she retracted it, jumping back a few hops and flipped out a pokeball, her companion following suite. "I'm taking you down here and NOW! You will PAY for ruining my prefect image, reputation and JOB!" Mike leaned back as the pokeballs opened revealing a fat Purugly and a large Toxicroak, he didn't remember ever having done any of those things to someone and he was pretty sure he would have remembered doing them…wouldn't he? No time to ponder about it now though, if it was a battle the crazy woman wanted then it was a battle she would get! He was brought out of his reverie by a voice next to him.

"Hey, team up?" The girl grinned at him, he allowed a small smile. His hand closed over a pokeball.

"Sure, I've got the perfect partner for you." He tossed the pokeball out onto the street. "Tosten!" The lavender cat-like Pokémon appeared stretching and yawning, settling into his customary seated position, tail wrapped around his forepaws.

"Awesome! An Espeon! Come on Midnight, let's win this!" The black Umbreon leapt into a battle stance next to Tosten, hackles raised. Tosten however merely licked a paw, cleaning it thoroughly. Refusing to give any Pokémon his precious attention until his paw was spotless. The woman didn't care about Tosten's cleanliness and jumped right into the battle.

"Purugly! Let's make that jerk pay! Slash his little Espeon to ribbons!" The plump gray cat snarled, the claws of his right paw glowing brilliantly white as he made to slash Tosten. Mike squinted, where those Nidorina footprints in the Purugly's chest fur?

Mike's new found battle partner was shocked, here was a huge angry Purugly bearing down on the poor Espeon, still enraptured by his paw and this boy didn't seem to be about to say or do anything to help his Espeon. That slash attack would do heavy damage to the psychic Pokémon, didn't he know anything about battling? Suddenly the boy gave a quick start and turned toward her. About time she thought, but then he opened his mouth and dashed her happy thoughts.

"Oh yeah! My name's Mike." Her mouth dropped open. His Pokémon was about to be hit by a powerful slash attack and all he could do was introduce himself? Her mouth snapped shut. Well if he wasn't going to help his Pokémon then she would have to. Honestly how did such an irresponsible trainer get such a beautiful Espeon? It was beyond her. _Mistress we need to act quickly if we want to save the Espeon_ Midnight murmured bringing the girl back on track.

"Right! Midnight quick attack!" The black and yellow glowing Pokémon became a blur as she sped on a collision course with the Purugly. The two feline based Pokémon collided, Midnight knocking the Purugly down with a well placed bite to the shoulder. Tosten didn't even look up, he had moved from cleaning his paw to cleaning his face. The girl heard Mike let out an irate sigh.

"Now why did you do that?" He grumbled running a hand through his hair, the other rested on his hip. Once again the girl could only gape at Mike, this time her Pokémon Midnight joined in. Did he just not care about his Espeon? She stuttered for a few minutes before she calmed down enough to use words.

"Um hello? Saving your Espeon cause _you_ weren't doing anything!" Mike just glanced at her and then said calmly.

"If you wanted to help, you should have used a status aliment. You left yourself open." At this the girl looked like she was about to explode. This guy came off as the world's biggest jerk! Before she could haul back a fist and let him have it, Mike's words suddenly and unexpectedly made sense.

"Toxicroak brick break!" The girl gasped as the blue and orange Toxicroak's brick break came at Midnight who was in no position to block or dodge the attack, what with a growling Purugly to one side and still cleaning Espeon on the other.

"Tosten! Psychic!" The girl blinked and suddenly the Espeon was in front of Midnight, delicately poised on its four paws with the split tail arched primly over its back. The Toxicroak was just about to strike, red claw mere inches from Tosten's nose when the red jewel on Tosten's forehead flared to life. The toxicroak was frozen in midair by a glowing blue force field, Tosten's wide eyes narrowed and the force field blasted the Toxicroak away. It skidded across the street, rolling head over tail to crash into the wall of a shop on the opposite side. The girl was wide eyed, that Espeon was FAST!

"Let's try this again, my name's Mike and this is Tosten." The Espeon bowed his head gravely at his name. Mike locked eyes with the girl. "And you are?" The girl smiled, so maybe this trainer wasn't as bad as she thought with speed like that the Espeon-Tosten he had said, would have been able to escape that slash attack no problem.

"Megan, Megan Rayme, and that's Midnight." Midnight had been staring, with a faint blush at Tosten. She quickly shook her head at the mention of her name, turning her attention to the Purugly licking the blood off its shoulder. Mike nodded.

"Nice to meet you Megan. How about I handle the toxic frog and you take care of the fat cat?" Megan grinned and cracked her knuckles.

"Sounds good to me!" The woman had decided that they had had plenty of time to get to know each other.

"Enough playing around! Body slam!" A yowl and the gray cat had launched himself in the air aiming for Tosten. The man also regained his composure, his Toxicroak having finally pulled itself together.

"Toxicroak use faint attack!" The blue frog lunged toward Tosten as well.

"Well damn," Mike muttered running a hand through his hair as he debated the best way to counter both attacks. Megan was a step ahead of him and had Midnight immediately jump to Tosten's defense.

"Quick, confuse ray!" Midnight's now glittering purple eyes locked onto the Purugly's eyes. As the Purugly crashed to ground several feet short of his intended victim Mike snapped to having finally decided on a course of action.

"Quick attack, get out of the way!" Tosten managed to use his speed to duck under the Toxicroak's first jab but the second one seemed to come out of nowhere, hitting him hard in the side. Mike gritted his teeth as Tosten tumbled to the side landing heavily. The Toxicroak continued on to complete a second attack now that Tosten was temporarily out of the way.

"Brick break again!"

"Midnight look out!" The Umbreon was not fast enough to dodge the attack and the Toxicroak's attack hit home, knocking Midnight off her feet sending her rolling to land sprawled on her stomach several fit away, critical hit. "Midnight!" Midnight gamely began to struggle to her feet snarling at the enemy Pokémon. The woman tried to take advantage of the two downed Pokémon, Tosten still rather wobbly in his legs from the powerfully effective faint attack. However Purugly was still too confused to correctly perform the requested body slam technique and ended up in a heap on the ground mewling pitifully. She growled at her Purugly's failure. Mike dismissed the Purugly and concentrated on preventing the Toxicroak attacking Midnight.

"Tosten you ready to take that frog down?" Tosten crouched down to the ground growling an affirmative, tail flicking angrily around him. His perfect coat had been mussed and _dirtied_ in that fall, the overgrown toad would pay!

"Toxicroak finish that Umbreon! Brick break!"

"Quick attack Midnight!" The Toxicroak closed in on Midnight who, while having recovered from the last attack, was not in any shape to pull off a complete quick attack to dodge this one. She crouched down, readying herself to dodge as the blue and orange Pokémon loomed closer fist drawn back to attack.

"Zen head butt!" Barely a second after the command had been given and Tosten was just _there_, slamming his blue glowing head into the Toxicroak's side sending the taller Pokémon skidding. It dragged a claw in the ground to slow itself, but was knocked off balance by Midnight's quick attack which hit it right in the chest. "Follow up with psychic!"

"Faint attack!" The Toxicroak, looking rather worn down, lunged at Tosten but found itself floating in air, held up by Tosten's psychic attack.

"Purugly slash attack!"

"Iron Tail!" The Purugly trying to take advantage of Tosten's attack using up all of his concentration managed to shake himself out of his confusion long enough to launch a slash attack on Tosten. Megan had been waiting for this though and the Purugly suddenly found himself with a face full of Midnight's iron tail. The attack not only halted the Purugly's own advance but caused him to take several steps back, wrinkling his nose experimentally.

A loud crash followed by an extreme amount of dust and smoke signaled that Tosten had finished his psychic attack and no, the Toxicroak would not be getting back up anytime soon. One look at Tosten though showed how much the battle had taken out of him, he was panting hard, favoring the side that had been hit and just generally looked tired out. Midnight was not doing much better, at least the Purugly looked to be on his last legs.

"Toxicroak return! Go Skuntank!" Megan reflexively covered her nose with her hands as the large purple and white Pokémon appeared on the scene. Mike decided that Tosten was probably going to keel over sometime soon.

"Break time Tosten." Tosten disappeared off the field, still looking extremely put out that the 'overgrown toad' had ruined his near-perfect look. "Rica! You're on!" The giant blue and tan Pokémon made her entrance with a roar. The woman yelped the Nidorina of the past was now a fully evolved Nidoqueen. She and her Purugly certainly remembered that Nidorina. To find out she was now much bigger and stronger…well, now she wasn't as confident as she had been. Megan grinned.

"Time to get serious right? Midnight get back here!" She pulled out a pokeball. "Let's let Vera handle the rest of this, besides it's her crush they stole." Mike raised an eyebrow, what the hell had he gotten into? A crazy Pokémon soap opera? Midnight gave a firm nod, jumping back to stand by Megan's feet as she released her blue and black furred Pokémon. The Pokémon balanced lightly on her paws, keeping herself ready to launch an attack at a moment's notice.

"Vera ice punch!" Vera zeroed in on the Skuntank, fist covered in a bright blue light, the attack landed but didn't seem to deter the Skuntank any. The large skunk just shook its head, dislodging the ice crystals that had formed during the attack. Its trainer snorted contemptuously.

"Skuntank Flamethrower!"

"Purugly attract!" The woman decided to add her own attack to the ensemble. But she wasn't about to go head to head with the giant Nidoqueen just yet. Hopefully the odds could be turned in their favor if the ally Pokémon was immobilized and severely weakened.

"Vera dodge and counter!" Black paws moved expertly as Vera skipped around the jet of flame barely missing being singed. Rica looked back at her trainer questioningly, the Purugly might give Vera some trouble, and Mike just grinned brightly at the unasked question.

"Well don't look at me girl, go have some fun." He said making little shoo-shoo motions with his hands, Rica roared, stamping her foot against the ground happily, throwing herself into the fray. Megan glanced at Mike incredulously. One moment he seemed capable and in control the next he was doing random dangerous stunts. A pain filled screech and an angry shout had Megan turning back to the fight. The Purugly was down and most definitely out.

Rica having gotten the 'all clear' from her trainer had proceeded to stomp over to the Purugly. Unlike her sometimes absent-minded trainer, she clearly remembered the woman and her Purugly…mostly because her double-kick had been powerful enough to leave indents of her paws on the other Pokémon. Well, time to see if she still had it. The Purugly had entranced Vera; his trainer excited by the success had amazingly not noticed the four almost five foot tall sky blue Pokémon marching over to her Pokémon. Rica continued on her one-Pokémon march across the street until she was standing right over the Purugly, she pulled back her leg and cocking her head to the side, proceeded to kick the Purugly, hard. The fat cat Pokémon flew through the air, screeching, to land heavily on his neck and chest, hindquarters flopping in the dust after he landed. His trainer screamed angrily as she recalled him. Purugly sufficiently dealt with, Rica turned her attention elsewhere, oh yeah, she still had it.

Vera shook herself out of the daze brought on by the attract attack, immediately becoming aware of the second flamethrower attack aimed at her she leapt into the air twisting over the flamethrower to land next to Rica. Rica canted her head, flicking the tip of her tail from side to side as she studied the Skuntank, how best to take this annoying thing down? Vera crouched in a battle pose next to her, fist clenched in front of her, chest heaving from the near miss.

"I'm not done yet! Golbat provide support!" The woman sent out her second Pokémon, a large blue and purple bat type that immediately to the air, circling around the combat from above waiting for an opening. Rica grumbled, she remembered the annoying little zubat, now a Golbat, too. She flexed her claws, cracking the knuckles, one problem at a time, deal with the skunk first then go for the bat. Yes that sounded like a good plan.

"Dig Skuntank!" Rica growled as the Skuntank disappeared beneath the ground. That attack would hurt badly…if it landed of course. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mike lean over and whisper something to the other trainer.

"Golbat air slash!" The Golbat gathered the wind generated by his wings into a ball. Rica ignored him, wind and air attacks wouldn't even scratch her iron-like hide. Instead she crouched herself down facing the direction in which the Skuntank had disappeared. Her ally shifted on her black paws, also tensing. The Golbat swooped low, getting ready to release the air slash, however Megan and Vera were ready for him.

"Vera, use Rica as a springboard and hit 'em with an ice punch!" As Vera leapt onto Rica shoulder and then into the air, one black fist glowing blue, Mike called out his command.

"Well, now that Vera's safely off the ground. Earthquake Rica!" The man gulped as Rica cracked a feral grin. Gathering herself, she jumped a few feet in the air, as she landed white shockwaves ringed out from around her, like ripples in a pond, shaking the earth as they went. Up in the sky Vera's ice punch and Goldbat's air slash had met with a huge explosion. Vera powered herself through the almost over-whelming air slash to land a critical ice punch, nailing the Golbat right in the mouth, while on the ground Rica's earthquake proved ten times more effective against the underground Skuntank.

The golbat landed on the ground heavily, one stumpy leg encased in ice, fluttering his wings uselessly as the Skuntank crawled out of the ground, battered and bruised. The woman scowled, this was not going according to plan. She caught the eye of her compatriot and gave him a firm nod. Time to make a quick get-away.

"Explosion Skuntank!" Megan gasped. What was he thinking, they were in the middle of a street! The two thieves were probably going to use the technique as a cover to escape. But sacrificing your own pokemon in such a cruel way and on top of that they would be caught in the blast! There was no time to move as the Skuntank stiffened and began to glow. Megan suddenly found herself pushed roughly to the ground and a heavy weight dropped over her as the world turned white.

---O.O---

Rica was the first to stir. She had been hunched over protecting her trainer and her two allies from the explosion but now that all had gone quiet she began to unfold from her protective ball. Chunks of stone from nearby buildings and the road fell from her back as she stretched carefully, sitting back on her haunches, she scanned the area but found no trace of either enemy trainer. She grumbled softly to herself. Mike stood up next dusting himself off muttering about how traveling and battling were killing his clothing budget. Vera and Megan climbed to their feet as well shakily looking around, Midnight climbed up Megan's jeans to perch on her shoulder also on the lookout. Where had the two trainers got to? They had to be around here somewhere, they had to be!

"If you're looking for those two, you're wasting your time. They're probably looong gone by now." Mike stated, rubbing dirt from his long sleeved shirt. Megan and Vera both gaped at him. The two thieves had gotten away! And they hadn't been able to get back the pokeball and the pokemon within it!

"I'm so sorry Vera." Megan said, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. She put a hand on the jackal-like Pokémon's shoulder. "We'll get him back don't worry." Midnight cheeped an affirmative, trying to be supportive.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news and all but how are you going to find two people, two people, who I might add, are probably half-way across the region by now and adept at hiding? Just pack it in now and save yourself the trouble." Mike looked down at his jeans. "Damnit! I just bought these!" He moaned, Vera had had enough, she grabbed Mike by his outer shirt and yanked him toward her until they were face-to-face, growling dangerously. Mike did not seem to be the least bit worried about it though Rica shifted ominously in the background. "Please girl, I'm friends with the scariest female on earth. I've gone up against her when she was PMS-ing on a biblical wrath scale. You don't hold a candle to that." Vera glared intently into his eyes for a few more seconds but Mike didn't budge. In the end she dropped him and stalked off angrily.

"Incidentally, who were they and what was it exactly that they stole?" Mike asked as he looked Rica over for any extreme damage. Megan sniffed a few times, scratching Midnight behind her ears to help steady herself.

"Team Galactic and they stole my friend, Maylene's, pokemon." She said in a soft voice. Now that the battle was over Megan was reverting back to her shy persona and Mike had to strain himself to hear her.

"Maylene…ain't she the gym leader?" He questioned as he rubbed Rica's snout much to her enjoyment.

"Yes, they used the golbat's wind attacks to get through her defenses and stole one of her Pokémon." Megan focused on Vera standing at the edge of the rubble, emergency workers were already clearing the street and checking on people near the damaged area. So far it looked like everyone had been fine. She was aware of Mike leaning an arm on his pokemon's shoulder gazing at her and she blushed stuttering out the next part. "Vera is…is very…attached to the pokemon."

"Huh." Mike patted Rica on the arm as he returned her to her pokeball. "Kinda like how Midnight was becoming 'attached' to Tosten?" Megan started and glanced at Midnight, who's turn it was to start blushing. He walked over to the girl and her Umbreon. "Weeeellll, don't worry about your friend's pokemon too much." He flipped his arm, hand right side up holding a pokeball under Megan's nose. "He's a lot closer than you think." Megan pounced on the pokeball, snatching it out of Mike's open palm. She examined the pokeball frantically, same dings, same scrapes. This was certainly Maylene's pokeball, but then how-

"When I tripped him." Megan looked over at Mike who stuck his hands in his pockets. "He fell and the pokeball ended up by my feet. So I just picked it up, then they attacked us and I never got the chance to ask him about it. Good thing too huh?" He turned around and began to walk away.

"Hey!" Megan called, he turned back for a second. "Where are you going?" Mike shrugged and then smiled.

"Home, it's way too exciting around here for my tastes." Megan looked at the pokeball in her hand and then to Midnight.

"Where is that?" He turned back and continued walking away.

"Jhoto! Look me up if you ever get out there!" He called over his shoulder waving an arm in the air. Megan giggled at the slightly mournful cheep Midnight gave at that, here was something she could tease the mature Umbreon about. A crush on the prissy Espeon. When she looked back up Mike had been swallowed by the crowd slowly gathering in the street, oh well. She patted Midnight on the head.

"Come on. Let's go reunite Vera with her crush, take a quick stop off at the pokemon center and then head over back to Maylene to let her know everything's okay." Midnight purred in agreement jumping down to the ground to lead the way.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-1. Mike met team Galactic in a previous chapter but he was at least five years younger so he wouldn't necessarily remember it.

-Who's that Pokémon: Beat Nic is a chinchou.

-Almost left you on a cliffhanger there…but I could never do that to you guys, thanks for being patient.

-Apologies to Bronze Barometer who actually gave me the idea for last chapter, sorry I mixed you up with Fire Drastar.

-Megan Rayme and her Pokémon team are OCs created by Fire Drastar.


	13. Bombs away

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Tess and Connor are at it again. Oh those crazy kids. One of these days I'll get around to writing a Tess and Mike one.

* * *

Tess hiked through the grass. She walked with a purpose, an angry determined purpose. The purpose of one who had a mission, a mission they might not like but would complete all the same. The wild Rattata and Pidgey in the area took one look at her face and decided they had other places to be. Tess fixated on the small village just appearing on the horizon like it was the last bastion of sanity in a world gone crazy. Which for her, it was. Over the sound of her own footsteps Tess could hear her companion's, though she was trying hard, oh so hard, to ignore his presence. After the hundredth pained grunt accompanied by the sound of a shoe tripping in the grass, Tess gave up. She had been ignoring him steadily since reclaiming the map in Shinnoh. Honestly, how could he have screwed up reading the map so badly that they had wound up in Snowypoint?! It defied logic! She decided to let him know that while she was still angry she was now open to talking…or yelling.

"Oh good morning Professor Elm!" She began in fake cheery voice which she immediately dropped to a more 'masculine' one for the next part. "Tess, it sure is nice to see you. I have a favor to ask, will you deliver this package to Professor Oak in Pellet town? It shouldn't take you too long." She returned to her fake cheery voice, clasping her hands up by the side of her face and widening her eyes in mock happiness. "Of course Professor Elm! But wouldn't Connor be a better choice? He knows his way around Kanto." She dropped her hands and switched voices again. "That's a _great_ idea! Bring Connor with you!" She switched voices bringing her clasped hands back up to her face. "Oh course Professor Elm! Me and Connor should be back within the week"

Here she dropped her hands and spun around on a bewildered looking Connor. "Not!" She screamed poking him hard in the chest. "We would have been there dropped this thing off and be back in Jhoto by now. But NOOOOOO, someone just had to prove he COULD read a map when everyone and their mother know he can't!" Connor took a small step back under her verbal abuse until a thought occurred to him. This thought had him getting right back in Tess's face.

"If EVERYONE knows that then WHY did you LET me lead you all over the place?!" And the gauntlet had been thrown down.

In the space of a few seconds both trainers were back to yelling at each other, loudly. Their fight, even though it was in the wild expanse between the viridian forest and pellet town, was not as private as they thought. Not that it would have mattered either way to Tess or Connor, modesty was not a strong or cared about point.

The two watchers glanced at each other and then back to the fight, which had now evolved into a kicking, biting wrestling match with insults flying through the air as fast as fists. One of the observers, a female around 18 years old, leaned toward her friend.

"Do you think we should stop them?" She asked quietly tugging on her friend's short sleeved shirt. The boy tilted his head, folding his arms, as he continued watching the fight.

"Normally I'd say leave them to it." A particularly loud screech of pain caused a flock of Pidgey to take off in alarmed flight. "But they are disrupting our research environment." A small family of Rattata made a break for it, dashing toward the forest. He unfolded his arms and walked over to the two brawling trainers, his female companion a step behind him. Upon reaching the miniature tornado the boy issued instructions to the girl. "You grab the girl, I'll get the guy."

"Okay, on the count of three." Both got into positions behind or near their intended targets. "One…two…THREE!" The two lunged, the girl grabbing Tess under her arms and bodily hauling her away. While the boy snagged the back of Connor's collar and his arm dragging him out of Tess's reach but not before she managed to land a very solid kick…right to his face. He gasped, clapping a hand over his wounded nose and allowed the unknown helper to drag him away from Tess. Tess seemed content with the hit she landed on Connor, but struggled out of her helper's grasp anyway.

"Oi! Hands off girly!" She growled shaking one of her arms trying to dislodge the stranger's grip. Tess did not like someone she didn't know having a hold on her. The other girl just tightened her grasp. "Are you deaf?! I said let go!" She pushed back against her captor, elbowing her roughly in the ribs. The girl went down, sprawling on her back in the grass. Connor, who had been attempting to stop the rampant blood flow from his nose with a spare bandanna, was quite unceremoniously dropped to the ground as the boy holding him stalked over to Tess, anger in his eyes.

"What was that for?" He spat as he helped the girl to her feet. Tess just glared back at him meeting his eyes squarely.

"You interrupted! It's your own damn fault!" The boy's eyes narrowed.

"We were only helping you; you were disrupting the Pokémon in this area that we were attempting to study. You had no call for that!" Tess just rose to the unspoken challenge.

"You wanna piece of me kid?!" She said shaking a fist. The boy only scoffed.

"My _name_ is Francesco and I will fight you as a trainer not a drunken brawler." He said coldly. This only caused a wide grin to appear on Tess's face, she fingered a pokeball on her belt.

"Even better Frankie."

"That's Francesco."

"Too bad, I like Frankie better…Frankie." A twitch appeared on Francesco's forehead as he fumed silently. Tess, with the promise of a good battle dangling in front of her had calmed down sufficiently and surveyed her surroundings. They were in the middle of a field with no real body of water in sight, that narrowed down her choices from seven to three-no wait Connor was here, to two Pokémon. She made a choice and clenched her pokeball, Omi needed some exercise after all. It looked like Francesco had reached a decision as well. He was holding a pokeball tightly. Right as the two were about to engage in battle, the girl got her breath back.

"Wait!" Francesco paused to look at her while Tess just frowned. Now that a battle was so near, she didn't want to have it delayed or-heaven forbid-stopped entirely. She really hoped the girl just wanted to wish Frankie good luck. "I want to battle too!" Well…that was much better than just wishing someone good luck.

"That would make it two-against-one Alessandra." Francesco protested but Alessandra would not be swayed.

"I'm the one that got knocked over Francesco, it's _my_ fight! Besides, that kid over there can help her." Alessandra waved in the direction that Connor happened to be in. He looked up eyes wide to take stock of the developing situation. He gaze darted between Alessandra and Francesco, glaring at him and Tess; arms folded also glaring at him and gulped.

"Th-that's fine. I'm sure Tess is good on her own." He offered shakily. Alessandra narrowed her eyes.

"Get. Over. There. NOW!" Her tone had Connor on his feet and next to Tess in the blink of an eye. Tess smirked.

"Impressive. And now on with the fight! Go Omi!" Her pokeball's red flash was accompanied by three others as the rest of the battlers joined on the field to the sound of their trainer's call.

"Boom clear the way!"

"Leaf let's do this!"

"Volcano come on out!"

Tess quickly evaluated the competition. Well it would be a close fight, fire and grass type vs. water and electric. The fire type wouldn't be too much of a problem hopefully Connor could run interference on the grass type until the other was down.

"Omi mud shot!"

"Thunder Wave!" The small blue Pokémon pushed himself up in the air firing a stream of thick brown mud at his opponent. His ally sparked once, twice and then fired three rings of electricity toward the Meganium.

"Dodge Volcano!" The Typhlosion was just a tad too slow and the mud splattered all over his face causing his flame collar to explode into life as he roared. The Meganium didn't even get the time for her trainer to issue a command to dodge as the three rings struck her head on, wrapping around her body like snakes and disappeared.

"Leaf! Razor leaf!" The green Pokémon attempted to attack but the electrical sparks of the thunder wave appeared stopping her from moving. Tess grinned turning to Connor.

"Let it never be said that you aren't useful as partner. " Connor grinned back.

"Does this mean you aren't going to kill me when this is over?" Tess remained grinning.

"Not a chance Connie." Francesco clenched his fist, annoyed that his two opponents were generally ignoring the battle.

"Stop ignoring us! Volcano rollout!" The Typhlosion's roll-out did little to no damage to Connor's orb shaped Pokémon. Tess just frowned.

"Hasn't anyone told you that interrupting is rude Frankie? Omi waterfall!" Francesco was only made angrier by Tess's teasing remarks.

"For the last time. My name is _Francesco_!" On the field Omi leapt in front and then over Volcano's second round roll-out attack at the same time dumping a flood stream of water directly on top of the fire Pokémon. A cloud of steam rose up from the fast rolling Pokémon. The roll-out attack's second charge was severely weakened and barely dented Bomb on the second go around. Alessandra giggled at Francesco's surprised looking face.

"Your Pokémon's pretty agile!" She called over to Tess. Tess smiled widely.

"Thanks!" She called back as Omi preened at the praise pumping his little blue tentacles in the air as though showing off muscles. Alessandra giggled again at the Omanyte's antics.

"Alessandra!" Francesco protested. Alessandra just smiled and patted Francesco on the shoulder.

"I'm just trying to build a bit of goodwill; this is probably all just a big misunderstanding." She turned back to the battle suddenly serious. "Besides being cute isn't going to save the little dear. Razor leaf again! We only need to hit him once, the type advantage is ours!" Connor however was on his toes and knowing how Tess worked, was more than ready to back her up.

"Flash Boom!" The spherical Pokémon glowed a bright white light that expanded and a startled shriek signaled the flash blinding the attacking Meganium. The razor sharp leaves went wide of their intended target at the same time volcano's third roll-out also missed his red and white target. The previous mud shot having covered Volcano's eyes. Tess jumped on the opportunity as the rolling ball of fire Pokémon careened around the field trying to get back on track.

"Water fall. Omi, that Typhlosion is almost finished!" Francesco squared his shoulders, Volcano was unable to defend himself, still stuck in the rolling attack, and he wouldn't be able to even use a potion on Volcano. There would be no help from Leaf either; the paralyzing hold of thunder wave had stopped her cold. The powerful down pour of waterfall hit the Typhlosion hard, Omi pulling another fake out. Volcano spun out of control as the Pokémon lost consciousness and slammed into a well-placed rock. Well, well-placed for the opposition. Alessandra grimaced as Francesco recalled Volcano, whispering words of praise for doing his best. She faced the two remaining enemies. The water pokemon would go down in one good strong grass move, the electric one would need a bit of finesse but Volcano had at least done some good damage. She shared a look with Leaf, they could do this.

"Alright Leaf let's get serious!" Leaf let out a cry of agreement, crouching into a battle pose. "Use giga drain on the Omanyte!"

"Flash Boom!"

"Withdraw!" The bright flare of light did not deter the Meganium's attack any. The green glow surrounded Omi even though the small pokemon had pulled himself back into his shell. Omi shuddered as the attack pulled out almost all of his health. Alessandra raised an eyebrow.

"Wow that's one tough Omanyte." Tess smiled again.

"Better believe it! Omi should have evolved by now but we like him just the way he is now! Cute and cuddly. Now then, we might not see the end of this battle but we can make it difficult for you to finish it! Mud shot!" The shell rattled and a glob of dark mud was spat out of the shell, hitting the bigger pokemon right in the eyes. Leaf reared back from the hit, shaking her head but the mud refused to clear.

"Thunder Boom!" The red-bottomed pokemon spun on its axis as dark storm clouds gathered overhead. A huge pillar of yellow crackling electricity shot down out of the clouds…and hit the ground two inches to the left of Leaf. All combatants and pokemon stared at the brown scorched earth where the thunder attack had hit home. Tess turned slowly to look at Connor. Connor sensing the weight of her accusing glare met her eyes sheepishly scratching the back of his head. "Uhh…it's thunder…not exactly known for its uhh…accuracy." He looked at Tess's unbelieving stare. "I'm sorry." He squeaked out. Alessandra recovered quickly from the near miss.

"Giga drain!" And like that Omi was out. Tess sighed as she recalled him, turning back to Connor, she poked him in the chest viciously.

"It's all on you now Connie. Don't you _dare_ do anything stupid!" Connor snapped his head around to glare at her.

"What makes you think _I'm_ going to do anything stupid? The Meganium's paralyzed and blinded! I just have to wear her down with enough thunder attacks, the only way I could possibly screw this up is if I for some insane reason said: 'Boom Self-destruct Now!' And there's no way I would do something _that dumb_!" Tess just put her face in her hand, shaking her head back and forth slowly with disbelief.

"It's my fault. I totally jinxed him." She mumbled. On the field Boom, not the smartest of Connor's pokemon, was rocking and beginning to glow a bright white light. Connor turned around to see what is was that had gotten Tess so down.

"Oh Shi-!" The explosion rushed over the battlefield, obscuring everyone's vision.

"Alessandra! Get Down!" Francesco tackled Alessandra and covered her with his body as the white light washed over Leaf and just missed them.

----O.o-----

When the dust had settled, Leaf was still standing, albeit just barely and looking pretty shell-shocked as well. Tess lifted her head off of her hand and glanced with rather dull unsurprised eyes at the final results. She sighed deeply, looking over at Connor who met her stare with wide frightened eyes. She looked back over at Francesco and Alessandra, still curled on the ground, sighing again, she dropped her hands to her sides.

"Forget it. Let's just get this over with." She said monotone, continuing to walk off toward the horizon and Pellet Town. Connor hurriedly recalled Boom and jogged after her yelling for her to wait up.

Leaf shook herself several times. Once the dirt caused by the self-destruct was gone she plodded over to her trainer and her trainer's friend. She nudged the boy with her foot and when that failed to produce a response kicked him. Francesco rocketed into a sitting position with a yelp, nursing the side that Leaf had attacked. Alessandra lifted her head, face blushing scarlet, from the cradle of her arms, looking up at Leaf.

"Did we win?" Leaf gave her a look and nodded her head. Alessandra squealed happily, leaping up to hug Leaf tightly around her long neck. "Leaf you are amazing! Time for a rest though." Alessandra returned Leaf to her pokeball happily. She turned to Francesco. He was glaring around the field angrily, waiting it appeared for the two mystery trainers to pop out and challenge them again. She giggled at her crush. Really it was very cute of him to be so angry for her sake. But they had research to attend to. "Come on Frankie!" She called teasingly as she continued on their way. Francesco stared after her in disbelief.

"Alessandra! Not you too! It's Francesco! You KNOW that!" He shouted hurrying after her.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Who's that Pokémon: Vera is a Lucairo

-Both Francesco and Alessandra are the creation of Legendary Fairy and are very brave souls to try and break-up Tess and Connor's fight.

-I'm still accepting OCs or request battles, see the author's notes from chapters six or seven for rules regarding ocs submissions.

Thanks

~Illusion-Factory


	14. Rico Never Gets A Break

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Damn you Mike why are you so hard to write for? I never feel like I do him justice.

* * *

"Connor…that is a really _really_ sad sight." Connor looked up from his burger to the 'sad sight' his darling brother was pointing out.

"I don't see anything wrong with it." Mike just leaned down from his perch on the boulder to look questioningly at Connor.

"You don't see anything wrong with it? He's a third of her size!" Connor shrugged, taking another huge bite as in front of them the sad sight continued to play out. Rico, Connor's Nidorino was desperately trying to get Mike's Nidoqueen, Rica's attention. Currently Rico was on attempt number five: present object of affection with flowers. It didn't seem to be going too well. Rica was more interested in her food than Rico at the present and yes, Rico's size was not helping matters. Compared to the tall Nidoqueen, Rico barely came up to her knee. So when he trotted proudly over to present her with the white wildflowers he had gathered, it wasn't too much of a surprise when Rica, swinging her tail around as she enjoyed her meal, ended up whacking Rico a good one. Sending him tumbling backward with spirals in his eyes, Rica didn't even seem to notice her would be suitor's appearance and subsequent disappearance as well.

"It wouldn't be so bad if you'd just evolve him already. I mean give the guy a chance this is getting painful to watch!" Rico was back on his feet and valiantly trying for attempt number six: present love with pretty stones, which ended in much the same way as the first five attempts had. Connor didn't say anything, chewing slowly on his food. His brother however saw the faint blush spreading across his cheeks and leaned in closer. "Or is it that you can't find a moonstone?" Mike sat back and snorted with disbelief. "Out of all of us, you spend _the_ most time in Kanto. How can you _not_ have found a moonstone by now?" Connor jumped to his feet so that he and Mike were on the same level.

"I have a freakin' moonstone, thankyouverymuch!" He spat out. "Just because I want to level Rico up _before_ turning him into a giant purple rabbit on steroids doesn't mean I don't actually _have_ a moonstone! Some of us like to bulk up our Pokémon first! Hey! Are you even listening to me?!" Mike popped out one of his headphones.

"Sorry. You say something?" He asked nonchalantly, twisting the ear-bud in his fingers. Connor folded his arms and stamped his foot, the picture of an angry child.

"You always do that!" Mike sighed and made to pop the ear-bud back in but a sight that wasn't a love struck Nidorino getting knocked around by his oblivious flame stopped him. He titled his head, ignoring Connor's ranting. Maybe he should inform his brother that a Pokémon was making off with his fries. "Is it too much to ask that-"

"Connor."

"You're my own brother! At the very least-"

"Connor."

"All I want is just a little bit of-"

"CONNOR!!!"

"Respect! WHAT?!" Connor's head whipped up to glare at Mike. Mike calmly gestured behind Connor, where he had left his food.

"Ya might wanna check on that."

"Check on wha" Connor spun around and caught sight of the thief. The Pokémon froze in the act of stuffing Connor's french fries, the last of his food, into his sack. Connor and the red bird locked eyes the world around them fell silent. The two combatants tried to stare each other down, Connor narrowed his eyes as the red feathered food stealing menace narrowed its eyes. Mike just shook his head, going to back to his own food and music while the stalemate continued. The silence remained for a few more seconds; the thieving bird was the first to break. It let out a terrified squawk, shoved the fries into its sack as Connor lunged toward it with an angry yell and dashed back into the forest. Connor scrambled to his feet, digging up bits of turf in his haste.

"Rico! Come on! We're not letting this insult to the fast food industry and, more importantly, my stomach go!" He shouted as he raced after the disappearing bird. Rico looked between Rica and his trainer's back several times before sighing and trotting off at a fast clip after Connor. Rica happened to notice Connor's departure and by extension Rico's. She sat back on her haunches, watching as the two rapidly faded from view. Scratching idly at her stomach she turned back to look at her own trainer. Mike was ignoring all and sundry with his ear-buds back in, reclining on the rock and munching on his own fries. Rica remained staring at him. Finally he glanced up, met her gaze and sighed.

"No, I'm not going after him." Rica didn't even twitch. "He's a big boy he can take care of himself." She didn't blink. "I just bought these pants, I'm not messing them up." If anything her stare got more accusing. Mike sighed irritably. "Fine! I'll go after him to make sure he doesn't get his dumbass lost…or killed. But if my pants get ruined he's SO paying for them." Rica grumbled happily, shaking herself loose as her trainer gathered all his and his brother's things. "Just like that moron to go running off and forget all his stuff. Alright let's go, shouldn't be too hard to follow, he left a trail a mile wide."

---^__^----

"Whoa!" Ben shot upright as one of his Pokémon, his Arctic bird Pokémon, dropped from places un-know to land violently on his stomach. The landing knocked the wind out of him, causing him to jackknife into a sitting position and totally ruin his nap. But he forgave instantly, Santabag looked pretty scared. He patted the frantic pokemon the head soothingly as he coughed trying to regain his breath. Santabag would not be soothed though and instead continued squawking loudly, flapping his flipper-like wings around wildly.

"Okay Santabag. What's got you worked up eh?" Ben asked his pokemon playfully. Before the pokemon could answer, a male figure burst through the foliage with a medium sized purple and pink pokemon following at his feet. The boy only took a few seconds to get his bearings before whipping out an arm to point dramatically at Ben and his pokemon.

"You!" Ben blinked in surprise. He had no idea how this guy had found him. Santabag had stiffened and gone strangely quiet. "You stole my french fries! Rico sludge bomb!" Ben jumped to his feet, Santabag dropped to the ground in front of him unceremoniously.

"Whoa! Wait a second!" But the purple rabbit was already attacking, a ball of noxious mud and fumes hurtling through the air toward them.

"Blizzard!" Santabag reacted instantly, puffing up his bright red and white chest feathers and letting out a powerful stream of icy wind with snowballs mixed in. The sludge bomb was quickly frozen and dropped to shatter on the ground. "Now why the heck are" Ben was quickly cut off.

"Double kick Rico! We can't let up!"

"Aerial Ace Santabag!" The two pokemon sped toward each other on a collision course.

----^__^-----

Mike stumbled into the clearing several minutes later, kicking his foot to free it from the clinging underbrush. He was prevented from falling and landing hard by Rica. Following along beside her trainer, listening to him grumble and complain about the forest was in the perfect position to grab his failing arm, keeping him upright. Mike brushed his arms and pants off, patting Rica on the shoulder in thanks. Suddenly Rica grabbed him around the waist and wrenched him into the air, a second split-second later Rico crashes into the ground where Mike had been standing. Mike and Rica stared at the pile of purple twitching limbs wide-eyed. The temporarily downed Nidorino gave a deep grunt and was back on his feet, shaking his head to clear it, huge ears flopping around.

"Confusion!" And Rico jumped back into the fray. Rica carefully set her trainer back on the ground. Mike absently clutched at her upper arm. Both watched surprised and more than a little confused as Rico's confusion forced the same pokemon that his brother chased, into the ground with a crash. But soon the bird was back on his feet as his trainer, a tubby brown haired kid whose expression was one of absolute confusion, ordered a strong ice shard counter-attack.

"Uh oh." Mike dove out of the way and Rica curled into a protective ball as the ice shard that Rico dodged around ripped up the turf where they had been standing. "What the hell?" Mike grouched sitting back up and then having to immediately jump into a tuck and roll to get out of the way as a red bundle of feathers crashed into the ground not two inches from where he was. The pokemon climbed to his feet and heeded an order to use blizzard. Mike pulled out of his roll and sprinted madly away as Rico dashed in his general direction to attack with double kick. Rica had managed to escape the worst of the wild battle by taking shelter near a huge tree and because it seemed that Mike had inadvertently drawn the worse of the battle his way. He weighed his options before another near miss with blizzard had him sprinting, ducking and weaving toward Rica. Her bulk would be enough to protect him from further side attacks.

Finally safe at Rica's side Mike could examine the battle now that he wasn't running for his life. He winced as Rico attempted another reckless double kick attack and got slammed by a powerful ice shard counter. When Connor got angry, which admittedly wasn't that often, he got upset, yes but angry? Hardly ever. Either way, when Connor was this angry he tended to abandon his careful battle style and went straight for the throat so to speak. Unfortunately, Rico, his one pokemon who could go straight for the throat had no effective moves against this pokemon. And pure rage was not a battle style Connor did well. The other trainer seemed to sense this and was making full use of Connor's short-sightedness. Rico was not holding up well against the other pokemon's onslaught. He was too tired out to keep moving fast enough and the thieving bird was out classing him drastically. It wouldn't be long now.

"Santabag! Water pulse!" The three strong rings of water rocketed at the tried out Nidorino. With had no ability left to dodge the three rings struck him squarely in the chest, sending the poor pokemon tumbling across the clearing. Connor recalled Rico and reached for a second pokeball on his belt. Mike was not about to let that happen, he did not want to know what an out of control poison powder or confuse ray would do to him.

"Connor leave it alone." Mike said coldly, tapping a finger against his folded arm, dirt and tears littered across his clothing. Connor pointed at Santabag and by extension Ben, spluttering.

"But-but he-he"

"He what? I've nearly been stabbed by a giant shard of ice, used as a landing pad for both pokemon and barely dodged being the target of several wayward attacks! If your food is _that_ important to you, I'll let you have my freakin french fries!" Mike shook the half-empty fry container that Rica had been holding along with Connor and his's bags and squinted at it as he amended his previous statement. "Or what's left of mine."

Connor had turned his full attention on his brother, Rica as well started with surprise. Mike looked up and caught the incredulous looks from both brother and pokemon. "Oh don't look at me like that!" Connor's mouth had dropped open. "It's not so surprising that I would offer an idiot in need my food." His eyes were almost the size of saucers. "Stop that! You're making me feel bad." Silence prevailed in the clearing. "Just take the damn food already and cut that out!" Finally Connor deemed it necessary to speak.

"You never, _ever_ give food away…to-to _anyone_!"

"Well maybe I just feel like being charitable today?"

"You're never charitable without a reason!" Ben looked back and forth between the two brothers. He felt the strong need to clarify a few points.

"Yeah well this time I just want the insanity and threat to my person to stop!"

"Ummm…excuse me? Is that what this whole thing is about? A box of french fries?" Connor whipped his back to glare intensely at Ben. Santabag stepped back under the force of the glare.

"Not just 'a box of french fries' kid." Connor spat out. "_MY_ box of french fries. Your pokemon _stole_ them!" Ben looked down at Santabag who timidly produce the coveted item from the brown bag and shook his head in fond exasperation.

"I'm sorry, he does that all the time. Bad habit." Ben looked down at Santabag. "Well? Go give them back to him." The pokemon hopped forward, waddling across the expanse to Connor. He proffered the french fries back to Connor with a flipper-like wing. Connor eyed him suspiciously, snatching the fries back quickly. Connor narrowed his eyes at Ben and Santabag before stalking back the way he had come, quickly disappearing into the gloom. Mike pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head, he was so going to kill his brother later.

Catching Ben's eyes, he gave him a thankful nod, following Connor's trail back into the forest with a 'sorry about that' tossed over his shoulder Rica trailing after him, flexing her claws. Ben looked back down at Santabag and patted him tiredly on the head. "Next time, don't get caught." Santabag nodded firmly, sighing in relief as the two trainers and the large pokemon vanished from sight.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Who's That Pokémon: Boom is an Electrode.

-For those of you who love Tess, and wanted to see her this week, fear not! For I have lent her out to CherryDolls for the story Vence's Journey: The Five Badge Challenge. So be sure to head over there, check it out and let CherryDolls know how well s/he did! Because I've read it and it was awesome!

-Special Thanks goes out to: Belhotte, Legendary Fairy, Fire Drastar and Bronze Barometer. Who collectively rule my reviews page. I don't ask for reviews so the fact that you guys take the time to review every time I submit something new(or almost every time) gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies. You guys are the best! Honorable mention goes to Totalpotato for sending some really helpful reviews as well. I always try to answer all of my reviews and you all make it worthwhile to keep writing. Thanks for the continued support!

-There is a poll in my profile go vote!

-Ben and his team are the creation of Belhotte and yes this is his second appearance. Some of the other ocs will get second go rounds as well.


	15. Mike Becomes A Sidekick

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

I'm making up for lost ground on the Mike front. If I write him enough, maybe he'll stick…_maybe_.

* * *

"Ho! Trainer!" Mike stopped walking and looked around, there didn't seem to be anyone else on the path but him. Odd he could have sworn he had heard- "You! Right there!" The loud female voice caused Mike to look down. Oh, so that's who was speaking. On the path in front of him, standing so close to him that with a few more steps he might have knocked into her, was a short, ten year old girl. Mike looked down at her, extremely bewildered and confused.

The girl seeing that she finally had Mike's attention began to belt out the rest of what was on her mind. Mike winced she seemed to think that he wouldn't hear her unless she delivered her challenge at ear-splitting decibels. On top of that Mike had to lean back as she attempted what appeared to be a very complex line-dance. Her hands came close to whacking him in the face several times, unintentionally he was sure. Mike recognized a few of the moves she was pulling as those from some of the more famous(and showy) trainers featured on TV. But it seemed like the girl hadn't been able to decide on just one trainer to emulate and so had made a mash up of ALL the trainers' poses. He supposed it was a good thing that Tess and Connor had never had much interest in becoming famous pokemon trainers (Tess was more of an infamous trainer at this point anyway.) If the girl had tried to emulate _her_ Mike would probably have a black eye and bloody nose by now. And if she had tried to copy what Connor did…well, the girl would have wound up with two black eyes, a bloody nose and a twisted ankle.

"And that is why I, Jill, challenge you to a battle!" Mike blinked, the girl was looking up at him expectantly so she must have finished yelling at him, lucky for him he had a really good memory. He replayed the yelling in his mind to see if he had missed anything interesting: Trainer, blah, blah blah, challenge, blah blah, blah, pokemon, blah blah, blah master, blah, blah, blah your name. Well he had gotten the important words down, that was all that mattered. Mike shrugged he might as well humor the girl with this whole 'battle thing'. She was probably a new trainer which presented a good opportunity to get some training in for his newest pokemon.

"Alright, fine kid. Name's Mike, let's do this." Jill led the way to an open patch of grass, chattering away all the while on how she was going to be 'the very best'. The very best at what Mike didn't know, he'd stopped listening at that point and he had long ago stopped caring. "Yeah, yeah, yeah kid." Mike cut in impatiently as he walked to the other end of the field, chosen pokeball already in hand. "Let's just get this over with. Go Maple!" Jill didn't seem the least bit put out at being so rudely cut off, in fact she seemed waaaaaay too happy about releasing her pokemon. So happy in fact that she had started yet another dance-uhhhh, dramatic pose.

"And now for Scizor to take you-whoa!" Mike bit his lip hard and Maple covered her yellow eyes with her arm. Jill had been attempting a one-foot twirl with her arms out spread, one clutching her pokeball. Unfortunately she wasn't able to complete the showy twirl, her foot slipped and the rest of her followed the law of gravity. Her pokeball bounced twice on the ground as she recovered and opened. The brief second of hilarity was halted. A scizor was serious business, never mind that it was incredibly rare that a rookie trainer would have such a powerful pokemon, Maple was only a Snover, she would be hard pressed…Mike blinked and did a double take at the pokemon that formed from the red light. He covered his mouth with his hand and took several quick deep breaths. Maple only looked very, very confused. She scratched the back of her head, was there some sort of strange obscure naming ritual odd trainers practiced that she was not aware of?

"I see you are struck speechless by my mighty Scizor." Jill had regained her feet, looking smug and triumphant if a bit bruised with her hands on her hips a wide smile on her face. Well Mike had to give her some points, the pokemon _was_ red and it _did_ have crab-like claws but that was where the similarities between this pokemon and Scizor ended. However it seemed to be up to the rather large challenge of trying to fulfill Jill's wild belief with the way it was waving its claws around in the most menacing way it could manage. Mike felt that he should do the responsible adult thing here and point out her misconception.

"Kid, I have no idea where you got the idea but that's-"

"My powerful Scizor. I know." Jill cut in before Mike could even really being to correct her.

"No I mean-" He didn't get a second chance either. Jill had grown tired of the pre-battle chit-chat and went straight to the fight.

"Scizor! Use Night slash!" The little red pokemon growled, its small crab claws heading for Maple. Mike sighed. Well no one could say he hadn't tried.

"Maple razor leaf." The Snover took the night slash on the chest and retaliated by filling the air with thousands of small crescent shaped leaves. Jill gasped as her beloved Scizor was brutally assaulted, cuts appearing on the hard shell of its body from the sharp leaves. Instead of shaking the attack off like any other Scizor hers was badly hurt by it. She would have to train it harder, its defense must not be as high. Time to kick things up a notch! Jill struck a pose she had seen a trainer use on t.v. One foot tucked up, arm out-stretched, finger pointing toward her opponent.

"Scizor, swords dance!" The pokemon narrowed its eyes as glowing swords of light surrounded it. The swords spun around and were promptly absorbed into the red body. Mike shrugged, the girl could boost her pokemon's attack power all she wanted but Maple only had to hit it one or two more times before the match was won.

"Razor leaf again!"

"Get out of the way Scizor!" The large cloud of leaves descended on the hapless pokemon, who surprised both Mike and Maple by being agile enough to leap out of the way. Well, not completely, some of the leaves caught the pokemon on its spider-like legs, causing the landing to be a bit rough. The pokemon gamely struggled to its feet, snorting angrily. Jill whipped out a hand, giving the air a quick one-two punch, both feet firmly on the ground now. "Good, now use metal claw!"

And that was where the battle came to a grinding halt. Jill's pokemon, preparing to jump forward at her command, caught itself and glanced back at her questioningly. What was this 'metal claw' its trainer spoke of? It did not know a 'metal claw' attack, it was sure it would know what such an attack was if it did. It would not fail to perform such an attack if it had any clue what the attack was. How did one make one's claws metal? It glanced down at its claws, no metal there, and waved them up and down quickly in the air. Then checked them: nope, only normal claws here. It turned back to its trainer. Perhaps, and here the poor pokemon gave a cringe for even thinking it, perhaps trainer was mistaken? It had happened before.

Jill was unaware of her pokemon's internal struggles to follow her command and was growing impatient.

"Come on Scizor! Use metal claw! You can win this!" But 'Scizor' only stood there looking at her with a hopelessly lost and confused expression. Mike merely pinched the bridge of his nose. Wherever he went it seemed he was destined to run into at least one mentally unstable person a week. Jill's pokemon had attempted to use metal claw, if that rapid claw wavy thing was any indication. But it was impossible for a pokemon such as it to learn the attack and so no actual attacking had taken place. He should probably be explaining that to the confused Jill but really, at the moment he was afraid his voice might give away his internal laughter. After a few minutes and Jill still not getting anywhere with a metal claw, Mike decided that he should probably take the lead and finish this battle up…once he got himself under sufficient control.

"End this Maple, use razor leaf!" With its trainer preoccupied trying to get it to attack , the enemy pokemon was a sitting duck. Maple's razor leaf storm swirled around her once more and shot toward the confused looking pokemon. Jill noticed the attack far too late to do anything but yelp.

A short second later and her pokemon collapsed with numerous scratches and gashes along its body. Jill stared at her KO'd pokemon with wide eyes. Mike got ready to make a quick getaway in case the tears started flowing. He hated it when the rookies cried, he was pretty sure _he_ hadn't cried when he lost the first fifteen battles of his pokemon career.

The girl though, once again surprised him. Instead of crying the girl calmly recalled her pokemon and then of course struck another pose. A finger pointed dramatically right at him.

"You! Trainer Mike!" You must be a great trainer indeed to be able to beat my powerful Scizor!" Mike raised a finger about to protest this statement but Jill continued on without pausing to allow him to talk. "Your pokemon must be very strong indeed! I hope to run into you again and show you how much I've grown!" She shouted before promptly turning and marching off in the direction of the nearest pokemon center. Leaving Mike and Maple standing there, the two glanced at each other and then back at the disappearing figure of Jill.

"What a weird kid." Maple grumbled in agreement she turned to look up at her trainer. Mike met her eyes. "No, no way." Maple grumbled again. "No, she can take care of herself." Maple's eyes narrowed now. "I am NOT going to be her babysitter." The world froze around the two of them until Mike heaved a sigh. "Fine, you win. I'll watch her until we get to the city." Mike began jogging down the road after Jill, Maple behind him. "Hey wait up Kid!"

"Excellent! You can be my sidekick!" A little part of Mike died inside as he replied:

"Sure, fine, whatever. Just keep walking."

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Who's that Pokemon: Santabag is a delibird

-Chapter Nine has been fixed, for some reason it was showing chapter six instead.

-Check back later today for I shall be up-loading the first chapter of "Born to Battle: Origins", hopefully.

-A small child in the care of Mike…I really couldn't help it. Jill is so optimistic and Mike is so jaded, I had to stick them together for an indefinite amount of time. She will drive him up the wall.

- Trivia:

Maple is named for the syrup, not the tree. Why? Mike likes his syrup and he's amazingly un-original.

Oh and yes, in the very beginning Mike sucked at battling.

You can talk Mike into _anything_ as long as you stare at him long and hard enough.

-Jill and her pokemon were created by: TotalPotato


	16. Coincidences Like This Only Happen Here

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

YAY for follow through!!!

_Italic=psychic pokemon speak_

"Here's your bag back ya freakin' PUNK!" Tess shouted as she whirled the backpack around in one hand. The bag, released from her grip, flew through the air whacking its owner right in the chest. The trainer bruised and battered from numerous encounters with Tess's fists and her foot on one memorable occasion, crumpled to the ground with a pain filled groan. Tess turned and marched away, flipping her dark red hair over one shoulder with a toss of her head, nose in the air.

It was all well and good doing the right thing. Some idiot had stolen some trainers' bags, it was therefore her duty to see that they were returned.(1) She hadn't minded _too_ much when the second to last trainer had begun using cheesy pick-up lines. Honestly, what girl would fall for those anyway? But then when he had tried to cop a feel when reaching for his bag…well she had felt the need to show him how much of a karate expert and how 'kickin' her body actually was.

She cracked her knuckles. Man that had felt good. And now she had only one bag left to return before she could head out to meet with the guys. Life was looking good so far. She rummaged around in the bag as she walked, looking for identification of its owner or some sort of contact number. Tess had decided, after a lot of trial and error, that the best course of action for finding any trainer missing their bag was to head to the Pokemon center. Chances were that the trainer would be holed up there and if not then either nurse Joy or another trainer would have news of someone looking for their bag and, Tess came up with a handful of pokeballs, pokemon. She dropped them back in the bag digging down deeper until her fingers hit a metal case. Bingo.

Tess pulled out the metal case and cracked the lid open. Inside were a small multitude of colorful gym badges and more importantly to Tess anyway, an official trainer card. Gym badges and that whole 'champion' business didn't have much meaning for her anymore. She pulled out the trainer card to better examine it, flipping it back and forth between her fingers. A young girl with brown hair tied in a ponytail smiled brightly up at her. Tess snorted. Maybe it was just her but pokemon trainers seemed to be getting younger and younger…great now she sounded like an old lady. Tess shook her head, going back to examining the card. The name printed in clear black letters was Megan Rayme, and the city the card was registered in happened to be in Sinnoh. She blinked. That was a surprise, so far all the trainers had been from Jhoto. Tess clicked the case closed and returned it to the bag.

Well no one could say she hadn't tried to do the right thing. She had returned all the other trainers' bags. Surely she could rest easy even with abandoning this one bag to the pokemon center. If it had been any _other_ region beside Sinnoh she would have, grudgingly, traveled to the said region and returned the bag. However this was _Sinnoh_, Tess _hated_ Sinnoh, hated it with every fiber of her being. The reason? It was cold, there was _snow_ there. Tess wanted nothing to do with a region like that, it was why she stuck primarily to Jhoto and then Hoenn. Connor wouldn't even go to Sinnoh, in fact only Mike ever went there…wait. The little light-bulb went on in Tess's head. She could ask Mike to return the bag! Sure he would refuse outright like he always did, BUT! All she had to do was ask him in the presence of one of his more…'parental' pokemon, like Rica, Maple or even Lazuli, and they would make sure that it was done. And so with a happier countenance Tess turned and set off in the direction of the designated meeting place between her and the other two.

----^___^----

Megan growled angrily, pushing strand of hair away from her face, she had already worked her way through being frantic now settling on extreme anger. This whole trip to Jhoto was looking more and more like the stupidest idea she had ever had. Nothing had gone right on this trip! It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Go visit the warmer Jhoto during winter and while there drop in on Mike so that her Umbreon Midnight could visit her crush Tosten. How her intelligent, mature friend had fallen for a very vain albeit beautiful Espeon was beyond Megan but she suspected part of the reason might be the way the Espeon had protected Midnight during a double-battle.

But between the train getting high-jacked by team galactic, finding out the hard way that Midnight was allergic to Tamato berries and realizing that upon arrival in Jhoto, Mike had never actually specified _where_ in Jhoto he lived, just that he lived in the region, this trip had been shaping up to be a big bust. The final straw had been when a thief had taken advantage of the fact that she was unfamiliar with the region and taken off with her bag, pokeballs inside. Megan had just set her bag down in a clearing to take a drink but when she had turned back the bag was gone! Thankfully Midnight had been out of her pokeball and so had remained with Megan. Now she couldn't just head home, she was stuck wandering around the forest trying to find both her way out and hopefully the jerk who had stolen her bag. Midnight rode on her shoulder, attempting to guide her in the correct direction back to civilization.

Grumbling angrily Megan continued in her one woman stomp through the forest. Kicking at bushes, tripping over exposed roots and pushing branches out of her face Megan stumbled, almost falling flat on her face as the thick underbrush gave way to a clear dirt path, Midnight leapt from her shoulder to land on the path. Megan waved her arms around wildly and would have fallen if a hand hadn't grabbed her arm to steady her. Megan ran a hand through her hair blushing profusely that a stranger had witnessed her moment of clumsiness, disaster narrowly averted she turned to thank her rescuer.

"Whoa, thanks for thaaaa…" The girl looked at her with a confused expression as Megan trailed off mid-word. Her eyes had stuck on the extra backpack the girl was carrying, anger making her forget her inherent shyness and embarrassment. "Hey! That's my backpack!"

----^___^----

Wow Tess thought blinking in surprise. That was a record-breaking coincidence. What were the odds of running into the very stranger you were trying to find? Pretty damn slim in Tess's opinion, she began to seriously consider buying several lottery tickets or spending the day at the nearest game corner. Who knew how long this streak of luck was going to last?

"Midnight iron tail!" Apparently not very long, Tess groused to herself as she dodged out of the way of the black pokemon's attack, unfortunately she dodged right into Megan who had darted forward snatching the strap of her bag, tugging it off Tess's shoulder. Megan darted back to a safe distance but Tess wasn't about to just let her attack and then run off.

Flinging her own pokeball into the nearby river with a splash Tess allowed herself a smile. She had chosen this route because of the water source which provided her with a power boost and a better selection of pokemon to use.

Megan gritted her teeth she hadn't really expected the other to fight back. Midnight was too tried out from wandering around in the woods to fight properly. She had been banking on grabbing the bag and running but she never ran from a fight, especially not when she had her pokemon with her. The bulbous blue and red head that rose from the river gave her the perfect idea for a counter.

"Midnight get back! Rosie it's your turn to shine!" Midnight quickly vacated the field of battle to her smaller ally. The pokemon shook herself and the red-light of release shattered around her. She crouched down on all four paws trying to look as menacingly as possible with a wreath of roses around her neck. Tess snorted slightly resigned. Typical and she had only been trying to help. Well, she might have the disadvantage but she was NOT going down without a fight! Unfortunately, to make this work she'd had have to take a page out of Connor's book and try to finesse her way through this battle. At the thought Tess shuddered.

"Man O' War poison jab!" A tentacle shot out of the water, the tip glowing purple. The smaller pokemon leapt to the side but was not quite quick enough. The poison jab grazed the yellow pokemon's side leaving a good sized scratch in its wake, a scratch that was tinged with purple.

"Rosie thunderbolt!" Her pokemon reacted instantly, sparks shooting out of the small body to fly toward the angry looking target. Man O' War just braced himself there wasn't any good way to dodge a lightning attack in water. He stiffened as several volts of electricity coursed through his body but he was gratified to hear the other trainer gasp as the poison weakened her pokemon in turn. "Rosie?! Come on girl, follow up with an iron tail!" Ah-ha. The small mouse had foolishly bounded into striking distance. Shaking off the lingering effects of the thunderbolt Man O' complied with the order for an ice beam attack, waiting until the foolish mouse was in the middle of her attack before letting loose with his own.

Rosie squealed as her iron tail attack was quickly over powered by the stronger ice beam. She didn't have any room to dodge being in the middle of an attack herself and was hit point-blank. Megan trembled with anger as Rosie tumbled to the ground, shivering and then suffered the effects of her poisoning as well. She hadn't expected the tentacruel to be so hard to bring down. In her experience water pokemon usually keeled over after a shock or two from Rosie. However the initial thunderbolt had indeed done a good amount of damage. Megan grinned, the other trainer might have a good mastery of her pokemon but type advantage would carry her out here.

"Hey! Hey you!" Megan blinked, Midnight let out a quizzical sound. The other trainer appeared to be trying to get her attention. "Yeah you! Right there!" Megan looked quizzically at the other trainer. What could the bag thief want? "What the hell is your problem?!" Megan started, what? What was her problem? "I'm trying to do the good thing here!"

"The good thing? You STOLE my bag!" Megan shouted back, Midnight added in her own threatening bark. "Rosie thunderbolt!" Rosie had rolled back to her feet and shot off another round of her powerful electric attack. Man O' War mentally groaned as he watched the lightning attack approach, he would not hold up much longer, he hoped his trainer understood that and planned accordingly.

Tess for her part did indeed understand that, at the moment though she was far too busy proclaiming her innocence at Megan. And in-between her heated yelling she'd fit in a quick battle command.

"The hell are you on girl?! Poison jab Man O'! I was returning the bag!" Man O' War's poison jab was easily dodged by the quick footed Rosie now that she had the room to move. Megan was slowly becoming undone. The stress from this whole botched trip was beginning to get to her. She wanted the battle to end RIGHT NOW and then follow the path into town, get to the local pokemon center, sleep for a LONG time and then go back home as fast as she could, leaving Jhoto(and Mike) behind.

"Rosie volt tackle, let's get out of here." Man O' and Tess shared the same though of 'oh damn' before the yellow streak crackling with stray bolts of electricity slammed into poor Man O'. Man O' War held on as long as he could but succumbed to blissful unconsciousness. Tess returned him and before Megan could make her getaway, dashed across the expanse to grab her arm. Midnight hissed angrily, swiping a clawed paw at Tess and Rosie snarled sparking form her cheeks in warning. Tess didn't seem to care and ignored the two pokemon.

"Now wait just a damn minute! I didn't take your freakin' bag!" Megan stared dumbfounded, wrenching her arm out of Tess's grasp, and returning Rosie to her pokeball before someone got shocked.

"Then why did you have it?" she hissed, her cheeks blotched red from her frustration. Tess sighed folding her arms across her chest.

"I got my bag stolen too. But some guys, who were a bit on the wimpy side, helped me catch the punk who stole it. He had all these other bags he stole from other trainers so I began returning them to their rightful owners. Pretty noble of me right?" Megan only stared at her dumbfounded by the smug, self-satisfied expression. "That's why I had your bag, I was taking it to a friend of mine to return it to a center in Sinnoh." Megan shared a glance with Midnight, secretly asking if the girl was telling the truth. _I sense no lies, she is telling the truth_.

Megan deflated immediately. She was tired very very tired. Having her pokemon stolen from her, having to rough it for two to three days in the woods, not to mention the aforementioned incidents and then beating an innocent trainer's pokemon down, an innocent trainer who had only been trying to help her took a LOT out of a girl. (nevermind that describing Tess as 'innocent' would make many peple burst out laughing.)

"You okay?" Tess asked slightly concerned. She might be late to meet the other two if this kept up. Apparently that was the wrong question to ask as the floodgates opened but not in the tears sense, more in the 'this is what has happened in my life' sense. Tess patiently waited out the seemingly non-stop river of words, well patient for Tess at least. Finally Tess cut in with a question of her own.

"If you hated it here so much, why didn't you just leave?" Megan glanced surprised at Tess.

"I'm looking for someone." At the raised eyebrow, Megan elaborated. "He's a trainer named Mike." Tess froze. There was NO way it could be the same person. Tess hid her face in her hands. "Is there something wrong?" Tess spoke without removing her hands from her face.

"This Mike…did he have brownish red hair? Blue eyes? Acted like a total know-it all jerk?" Megan looked at her surprised.

"Yeah he did." Megan picked up Midnight and cuddled her to her chest. "See Midnight here kinda has a crush on his Espeon, Tosten." Tess's head shot up fast, a gleam in her eye.

"Really? A crush you say?" Midnight's dark face fur got noticeably red. Megan just replied distractedly.

"Yeah, totally smitten with him but the thing is Mike never told me where he lives outside of just saying 'Jhoto' when I asked." Tess was eyeing Midnight, tapping a finger against her chin.

"Mmm, yeah, that sounds _just_ like him." Midnight was starting to get a little uncomfortable with Tess's calculating stare. _Megan she's starting to worry me_.

"Excuse me?" Megan said rather loudly, diverting Tess's attention back to her. "I hate to ask this, but can you help us out? It's just you seem to know Mike and you might know where he is." The wide smile Tess turned on them was what she thought to be friendly and inviting but to Megan and Midnight was downright predatory and scary.

"Lady you just asked the second most perfect person to help you." Megan gulped and Midnight's ears immediately dropped down.

---^__^---Time and space change---^__^---

"Okay look girl." Mike sighed, massaging his temples, Tosten sat at his feet studiously cleaning a paw. "Let's try this again." Jill nodded her head rapidly, striking another pose, pokeball out held in her hand.

"Scizor needs the training, he doesn't follow half my orders."Mike dropped his hands and shook his head.

"We're not training your pokemon we're training you. To be a better trainer, enough with the posing! Posing doesn't win matches!" He half yelled with exasperation. Mike looked down at Jill, sighing again at her blissful smiling face. "Nothing I've said has sunk in has it?" He asked. Jill just looked up at him with wide unblinking eyes before adding the cherry to the top.

"You need to work on your posing." She said seriously. "No one is going to take you seriously as a trainer otherwise." Mike just shot Jill disbelieving look before throwing his hands into the air.

"I give up." And just when he thought things couldn't get worse. _Her_ voice filled the air. Of course the whole point of coming to this place was to meet up with her but still.

"OOOHHH MIIIKKKEEE!" Tess sang out as she stepped into the wide clearing.

"What do you want woman?" He groaned, eyes squeezed shut, Tess merely grinned, showing all her teeth. Jill took a step back, not entirely sure what pose she should throw in the face of this crazy looking lady. Tosten had serenely settled to cleaning his tail, it would take several mach five class hurricanes converging over him at the exact same time to even cause the Espeon to cast the barest look up from his precious cleaning.

"I have someone here who wants to meeeet you!" Mike pinched the bridge of his nose, just great a compounding headache, Tess had brought a friend.

"Hey Mike!" Mike did however, glance up, if only to be polite to Tess's friend and stopped. The girl certainly _looked_ familiar. But where did he know her from?

"Do I know you?" He asked. Tess laughed at the girl's expression of disbelief. He still couldn't place where he had seen the girl but he was sure he had.

"Don't worry." Tess patted the girl on the shoulder. "Mike's always been a little…absentminded with people. The only reason he remembers me is that I almost castrated his brother, twice!" Both Jill and the girl looked at Tess with varying looks of horror and confusion. Jill tugged at Mike's shirt sleeve.

"What's 'castration'?" She asked innocently. This only made Tess grin wider and laugh at Mike's look of abject horror. The girl only looks at Tess, wondering who she decided to follow around.

"Poor Connor, he's never been able to look at sporks the same way." Tess mused, more for the girl's benefit than anyone else's. Meanwhile Mike had managed to stammer out a promise to tell Jill 'when you're older', and had turned his attention back to the vaguely familiar girl…who had an Umbreon poking its head out of her backpack. The Umbreon seemed to be focusing entirely on Tosten, still utterly absorbed in cleaning his tail. A spark of recognition flared.

"You're Megan!" Megan jumped and nodded at Mike's sudden outburst. Midnight squirmed free of the bag and with all the foreboding of several mach five class hurricanes converging on a single point made her way over to Tosten. Mike and Megan watched rather nervously, Megan hoping it would turn out alright, Mike because he knew how…well…catty Tosten could be when something interrupted his 'me' time, which admittedly was the majority of time. Jill had spent the last ten minutes being hopelessly confused and that wasn't about to change. As for Tess, she was watching the proceedings happily. If nothing else this would provide for amusement, meaning she would not have to make her own.

Midnight settled down as close to Tosten as she could while not actually touching him. Tosten did appear to notice her presence, pausing in his meticulous cleaning to give Midnight a quick once-over before paying careful attention to the top tip of his split tail. Tess shrugged, that was the best anyone could hope for with Tosten, heck an uninterested glance was practically the equivalent of excited hug coming from him. But enough about Tosten there were more important things she wanted to know. Like-

"Mike? Who is this little girl and why is she with you?" Tess asked as sweetly as possible. Mike narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her. Tess speaking sweetly was cause to head for the hills.

"We're traveling together." He answered warily. Tess looked between Jill and Megan. A smirk spreading across her face.

"Why Mike, with one girl following you around and this young lady coming aaalllll the way from Sinnoh to see you, why one might say you had a fanclub." She drawled snickering happily at Mike's horrified expression mark 2. Oh yeah this is where it was at. Poking fun at Mike was one of her favorite past-times and it got even better when she could pull fame and popularity into it. Mike was allergic to talk like that; the Pokémon league had disillusioned him rather brutally. Tess, like a good best friend, poked as much fun at this weakness as she could. "Awww, Mikey." She said barely containing her laughter at Mike, Megan and Jill's expressions. "I didn't know you were so damn popular." But what Jill said next pushed her over the edge into flat-out hysterics.

"I'm not in his fan-club!" She said indignant. "He's in MINE!" Tess stopped, staring hard at the younger girl and Mike in turn. Mike just sighed, dropping his face into his hand again. That was all the conformation Tess needed.

"You mean that's true?! Heh, hehhahhahahahahaAHAHAHHAHAHA!" Tess bent forward resting her hands on her knees, still roaring in laughter. Megan stepped carefully away from Tess and over next to Mike, whispering out of this side of her mouth to him while keeping a close eye on Tess in case of any sudden movements.

"Who is she?"

"You've been traveling with her and you don't know her name?" Mike asked, voice muffled by his palm. Megan blushed. "Her name's Tess." At Megan look he elaborated. "She's my…_best_ friend." He shook his head at her surprised expression. "That saying about choosing your friends? It's a lie, a dirty dirty lie."

"Hey Connor!" Megan and Jill both looked over at a slightly bedraggled young man tripping into the clearing. The boy looked very much like Mike, but with different colored eyes and a different shade of auburn hair, more red than brown. He kicked a foot freeing it from a root.

"What Tess?" He asked wearily. Tess managed to get out the next sentence before dissolving back into laughter.

"Mike isn't just part of a fanclub, he IS the fanclub!" Connor froze in the act of dusting himself off, lifting his head up to study Mike's rather unhappy visage. In seconds he too joined Tess in full-blown laughter, laughing so hard he couldn't breathe, tears forming at the corner of his eyes.

"Hey, hey, Mike! Do you conduct the meetings?" He called in-between deep breaths. Mike just shook his head more in despair over the conduct of his friend and brother then in answer to Connor's question.

"It is true about not being able to choose your family." He muttered, scowling at the ground.

Author's Notes:

1. Tess is returning the backpacks that were stolen from various trainers when she showed up in CherryDolls' fic.

-Who's that Pokemon: Scizor is a Corphish. Ba-ZAM!

-Mike totally needed to be made fun of. Besides what are best friends and brothers for if not to mock you ceaselessly?

-I just realized that this is Man O' War's first battle of the series. Oh for those of you wondering where I got the name Man O' War, it was actually supposed to be Tentacruel's American name.

-Mark your calendars. Tess and Connor shared a chapter and Connor _didn't get hurt_.

-Megan Rayme and her pokemon are the creative property of Fire Darstar and Jill was created by Totalpotato.


	17. Dance Dance Revolution

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Connor gets to show everyone how badass he and Rico are…at least for a little bit.

* * *

"Connor, I know I've said this before, but I feel that it bears saying again, That is one sorry, sorry, sight." Connor ignored his brother. "It brings tears to my eyes, it makes me want to curl up in a corner and listen to alternative rock." Connor continued to ignore. "It breaks my heart into tiny pieces, puts it back together again with duct-tape and then breaks into even smaller pieces. Such is the might of the sadness this sight produces." Connor squared his shoulders and cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Alright Rico! Let's try it one more time!" He shouted sounding extremely up-beat.

"Yeah Rico! You've nearly got this down!" Jill shouted from her position next to the purple rabbit. Rico looked up at her, large ears quivering from the volume being produced by the small powerhouse next to him. She smiled like a million-watt bulb down at him, patting him gingerly on the snout. "You just gotta twirl like this." Jill spun around on one foot, hands outstretched demonstrating with herself the moves she wanted Rico to pull off, Scizor enjoying the warm weather was right next to her, copying her moves as well. "Jump in the air."She hopped off the ground. "Land on a foot and twirl 'round some more." She sang enacting out her instructions, her beloved Scizor following her every step of the way. "Hop from foot to foot, spppiiiinnnn to the left." There was a slightly tense moment when it looked like Jill might just trip over Scizor, who couldn't twirl to the side as fast as her but the blunder was just barely avoided. After that Jill finished the last two moves, sliding to the right and an elaborate bow, without any big mishaps though she had slipped during the slide. Mishaps or not, Connor just clapped enthusiastically.

"Okay, Rico! Just try it like that!" He called. Rico was not too sure about this whole 'dancing' thing. His short stubby feet were not built to move so swiftly or gracefully. His blocky build and weight did not help things as well as his giant ears throwing his balance off…badly. He had taken several rough tumbles that had damaged his already depleted reserves of optimism. But all his previous plans to gain his love's attention had met with dismal failure. This was his last chance and so far it seemed hopeless. Rico sent a downcast, defeated expression toward his trainer. Connor pushed himself off the rock he was sitting on and ambled over to his depressed pokemon.

"Look Rico, you're doing really really good for a Nidorino. But Rome wasn't built in a day." Rico twitched his ears, expression edging away from downcast and into down-right confused. What did Rome have to do with anything? Connor sighed at the expression, elaborating for his pokemon's sake. "You just need a lot of practice first, okay?" Connor asked, rubbing the ridge of Rico's ear affectionately. "After a few days you'll have this down and the ladies will be falling at your feet. Trust me." Confidence restored, Connor walked back over to his brother as Rico began to run through his little routine with Jill and Scizor 'helping' as much as they could.

"You forgot to mention that the ladies would be falling at his feet laughing." Mike murmured, Connor well used to his brother's taunting by this point, just shrugged. "Just learning how to dance isn't going to impress Rica." Connor grinned.

"I know. Learning to dance is only part one of my ingenious plan." Mike raised an eyebrow.

"Dare I ask about part two?" He drawled, Connor's grin widened into a full-blown step into my parlor little fly smile.

"No, you'll just have to stick around and find out with everyone else." Mike huffed, he did not pout, Mike _never_ pouted, it went against his image. And no, crossing his arms across his chest was not indicative of pouting. He was brooding. There _was_ a difference, despite what people thought. Brooding was more mature after all. Besides, he knew his little brother, it would only take a few hours before he cracked and told Mike everything he wanted to know.

---^__^---

Two days later and Mike was just barely holding himself back from strangling his brother. So far despite every tactic Mike knew, Connor had yet to tell him what 'part two' was. And with Mike's frustration mounting, he was getting to the point where he might just have to employ the more…drastic measures.

---^__^---

Three days after found Mike sitting on Connor's stomach, hands wrapped around his throat, throttling him screaming: "What is part two?! Tell me you insufferable jerk! TELL ME!!!"

--^__^--

A week had passed from the first day and both boys were sporting bruises and cuts from several of the more 'drastic' of the drastic measures. Jill was merely confused but decided to chalk their behavior down to brotherly bonding. It was no surprise that Jill was an only child. Either way, she was more excited about the fact that Rico had managed to finally memorize and complete the dance routine she (and Scizor) had faithfully been working on. She clapped happily as Rico finished off with the elaborate bow.

"Oh that was wonderful Rico! You really pulled it together!" Jill cheered, Scizor back her up, clacking its claws together happily. Behind her Mike grumbled something that might have been congratulatory while Connor enthusiastically rubbed Rico ear ridges in his favorite spot, speaking soft words of praise.

"Alright!" Connor shouted suddenly, striaghting up and causing Rico to jump from the unexpected noise and movement. "Time for part two."

"FINALLY!" Mike shouted throwing his hands into the air, but Connor had already dashed out of the clearing. "Hey! HEY! Where're you going?!" Connor only waved a hand behind him.

"Wait there! I'll be right back!" Mike half-stood up from his seat.

"You jerk! Get back here and tell me what part two is already!" However Connor has disappeared from view and probably hearing as well. "That bastard." Mike grumbled sitting back down again fully prepared to brood until his brother showed back up again. Jill had other plans.

"Come on Mikey!" Mike's eyebrow twitched as her smiling visage appeared mere centimeters from his own. He had been hoping that Jill had forgotten Tess's horrendous butchering of his name but no, no, life was not that nice to him. "Let's run through the dance one more time with Rico!" She shouted with a double thumbs up. Mike sincerely hoped that Connor ran his ass back as soon as possible…sooner actually.

---^__^---

"Guuuyyyysss! I'm ba-what the hell?!" Mike looked incredibly sheepish, scratching the back of his head under Connor's bewildered and more than a little bit confused stare.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." He murmured, blushing bright red as he realized his brother had brought a friend. A female friend. Jill on the other hand was on cloud nine and not really paying any attention to anyone as she twirled around, clapping her hands in time to the beat, Rico and Scizor following her through the moves doggedly. The new girl decided to speak.

"I thought you said you wanted to battle?" She sounded incredibly indignant. Connor looked at her, mouth hanging open. "There are better pick-up lines out there then 'Hey, wanna have a one-on-one'?" Connor just continued to gape at her, Mike was backing away slowly, hand fumbling behind him for the device perched on the rock.

"I meant what I said!" Connor it seemed had managed to pull himself together as Mike's hand closed over the player and switched it off. Jill stopped mid-twirl with a look of disappointment on her face. At least until she saw Connor was back, then she smiled brightly waving hello. The girl was still smiling playfully, and waved back at her, calling out that her name was Jade, but his brother looked absolutely scandalized at the thought of picking up girls and so hadn't moved. "I want to battle you with him." Connor growled pointing over at Rico. The girl's smile widened and she laughed.

"Sure that's what they all say." Connor blushed a brighter red. Mike didn't think that was humanly possible. Jade pulled a pokeball off her hip. "Well, let's get this show on the road!" She called as she tossed the pokeball into the clearing. Connor had already moved the required distance.

"Come on Rico." Jill hopped over to stand next to Mike who was grumbling under his breath about how much more simpler it would have been if Connor had just told him that part two was a pokemon battle. Jade's pokemon appeared on the field with a low croon. Jill gasped.

"Prrreeetttyyy." She murmured.

"Let Rica out Mike." Connor ordered. Mike grudgingly opened the required ball, Rica appearing half-asleep from a nap. Rico gulped at the sight of his lady-love. "You'll do fine Rico!"

"I'm ready to start! Dragon rage!" The light blue poke opened her mouth and a stream of blue fire shot toward the purple rabbit. And Connor made his move.

"Dance Dance Rico!" Rico leapt easily to the side, gracefully dodging the attack but only a hair's breadth, twirling on his back feet.

"Thunderbolt!" The lightning crackled out of the small white horn but Rico hopped to his left side feet and the attack barely missed him. "Jeez! Stay still woudja?"

"Not a chance! Rico confusion!" As the Nidorino glowed blue Jade seized the chance.

"Thunderbolt again!" The lightning shot through the air as the serpentine blue and white body was knocked backward. The attack hit the Nidorino hard, sending electrical charges rippling through his body. Jade tossed a fist in the air. "Awesome! Slam!"

"Shake it off Rico!" Rico shook himself but was not fast enough to get out of the way of the attack. He wound up rolling head-over paws, to land at Rica's feet. She looked down at him, probably just noticing him for the first time. Rico pulled himself to his feet, very much battered. "Alright Rico you can do this! Don't go down without a fight!" Rico growled in agreement, shaking the dirt off of himself. "Double-kick!" Rico charged forward, Rica chanted her head to one-side, following Rico's attack.

"Thunderbolt!" Rico ducked and rolled to the side, coming up running as the lighting attack soared over his head, none of his momentum lost. Jade was quick to take openings though and as Rico swung himself around to deliver his double-kick she shouted out her next command. "Flamethrower!" The stream of fire engulfed Rico, but he still managed to land three direct hits before being blown back.

"Doing good Rico!" Connor called as Rico once again, climbed to his feet despite being littered with bruises, cuts, and now, burns. Rico shook himself hard.

"Dear Lord, what is your Nidorino made out of?" Jade called. Connor grinned brightly.

"Only the toughest stuff on earth darlin'! Go for sludge bomb!"

"Flamethrower again! He's almost done."

"Take a bow Rico!" The spurt of fire over powered the ball of stinking mud but Rico, amazingly, was still light on his feet, dodging down, close to the ground in the bow that was usually at the end of his little dance. "That's my boy! Another double kick!"

"Meet him head on, Slam!" The two pokemon launched at each other resulting in huge collision. The impact blew up a gigantic cloud of dust. Jill tapped Mike's shoulder.

"Is Rico going to be okay?" Mike looked over at Rica, who had very thoughtful and impressed look on her face.

"I think he's going to be just fine…never thought the little bugger would actually pull it off."

---^__^---

"Now it just looks so very, very awkward Connor. Can't you just let him evolve already?"

"No. Rico's lighter on his feet this way. Besides, _Rica_ doesn't mind."

"Yeah but _Rico_ doesn't seem to enjoy not being able to _breathe_ so much." In the field in front of the two brothers Rica was excitedly squeezing Rico in what she probably thought was a loving embrace, but due to her larger and stronger size against Rico significantly smaller size, it looked more like she was slowly crushing the breath out of him. Not that Rico really minded all that much.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-You can all let out that sigh of relief you've been holding since I introduced these two. Rico was supposed to lose but I like this ambiguous ending better, you decide who won and who lost or if they tied.

-Who's That Pokémon: Rosie is a Pikachu.

-For the foreseeable future Jill and Mike will be appearing together, he just couldn't dump her at the pkmcenter and run after all, much as he would have liked to.

-The one way to annoy Mike faster than anything is to have a plan or know some bit of trivia he doesn't and then not tell him about it. The kid likes to know EVERYTHING.

-Still taking ocs and request battles. For ocs just give me the name, age, short physical description, Pokémon team, moveset, levels and personality of their Pokémon. Either in a review or pm.

-Jade and her Pokémon team belong to thebeats; Jill as always is from Totalpotato.


	18. Double Water Battle

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo. And neither does Miss Congeniality.

See? I'm not dead, but this is not a triumphant return either, It'll still be a while before I'm ready to start again. Its Christmas tomorrow, but since I am unsure of being able to get on-line, I thought I'd up-load it today. So:

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS GUYS!

_Italics=Connor + Alessandra's side of things_

_

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_

Tess sighed swinging her feet as she sat on the edge of the bridge. She was so very bored, Mike was over gallivanting around in Sinnoh so he wasn't around. Last she had heard from Connor-well actually from Connor's parents, he was lost in the Safari Zone…again. So basically all of her usual playmates were unavailable. And thus here she was, bored.

Before she could sink any further into the abyss of boredom, the sound of shoes on the bridge had her perking up. With any luck it would be a trainer, someone she could battle. Tess was hoping it was an experienced trainer and not one of those bratty fresh from the lab with brand new pokemon in tow trainers. Those never lasted beyond two seconds. A voice cut through her joyful memories of making new trainers cry.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" Tess looked up, did a double take and grinned jumping to her feet.

"Frankie!" She shouted, dashing at him and throwing her arms around him. He stiffened and the words 'ohgodnotheranyonebuther' flew through his mind.* "Oh thank gwad you're here! I was so bored!" She stepped back and glanced around behind him. "Hey where's that girl that was with you?"

"Alessandra? She's doing some research for me in the Safari zone…and my name is Francesco." Tess just winked at him, pleased with her ability to get him riled up with only one word.

"Sure it is Frankie. Anyway, I just ask because you seemed kinda into her. I mean tackling her down for an explosion that didn't even reach you?" Tess leaned in closer to Francesco, who began sweating profusely under her intense stare. "I think you liiiiike her." Tess sing-songed, Francesco's face turned bright red.

"Now see here-" He began but was cut off as Tess continued in his torment.

"You want to kiiiiss her, you want to huuuug her, you want loooove her." Tess finished singing grinning in triumph. And in a show of how similar she and Connor were, happening elsewhere in the Kanto Safari Zone at the exact same time:

"_I think you liiiiike him."_

"_Shut-up!" Alessandra hissed trying to push Connor away but that only made it worse as he kept singing his stupid little song._

"_You want kiiiiiiss him, you want huuuug him, you want to loooove him." _

"_Oh That's IT! Go Water, Surf!"_

"Shut up! Night surf!" The wall of blue water surged toward the grinning girl, only causing her to smile wider before she disappeared from view under the large torrent. The entire flood lasted only a few seconds but surveying the now empty bridge gave Francesco a feeling of satisfaction. Showed that annoying girl who was boss, he mentally patted himself on the back and physically patted his Vaporeon on the head for a job well-done. At least until the loud voice cut through his thoughts once again.

"Nice try Frankie! But fighting the mistress of water pokemon with a water attack? Lame." Tess grinned from her perch. Standing on the back of a blue and yellow marked fish, arms crossed over her chest she grinned insanely. "Now it's time to show you how a _real_ water battle is done."

"_Nice try girl. But using surf against the kid who's primary battle partner uses water attacks almost exclusively is sooo…lame."Connor was achieving a feat of balance previously only seen in clowns, standing on top of his blue ball shaped pokemon riding the crest of the wave back at Alessandra. She let out a small squeak and dived for her Floatzel, wrapping her arms around his neck and clinging as the wall of water descended, this time on her._

Francesco broke the surface and spat out a stream of water, one arm wrapped around Night as his legs worked to keep him above the surface. Great, just great, now not only was he completely drenched but all of his research notes and equipment were drenched as well. He glared at Tess standing high and dry on her oversized fish which twitched as small shocks of electricity ran between the two yellow bulbs. Francesco furrowed his brows, how was Tess not getting hit by the electricity? Why wasn't she in river as well? And for that matter how she had managed not to get the least bit wet from Night's surf attack was simply beyond him. But oh ho, he was going to change that, misery loved its company after all.

"Night aurora beam!"

"_Water whirlpool!" The Floatzel's mouth opened and a large blue whirlpool burst from his maw, gathering energy as it sped across the wet ground of the safari zone. Alessandra grinned in triumphant as Connor's eyes momentarily widened, and he hopped off the ball shaped pokemon who clapped his little flippers happily, completely oblivious to the large whirlpool crashing toward him._

"_Aurora beam Caboose!" The happy pokemon trilled and rolled from side to side, releasing a rainbow colored beam from his frantically clapping flippers. The beam shot forward colliding with the furiously spinning whirlpool._

"Oh please. An aurora beam on a water pokemon Frankie?" Francesco gritted his teeth. The attack had hit the Lanturn but the pokemon had easily shaken it off and Tess had not been knocked off her perch. "I thought you were smarter than that." Her pokemon gave a condescending nod or what was more probably a sudden seizure from the rampant electricity that sparked around it. Really, it was a wonder Tess hadn't been zapped the way errant sparks danced around the Lanturn. "Well" Here Tess just held up her hands, shaking her head in a disappointed manner. "What did I expect? You can't win against me using a _water_ pokemon you only spend _some_ of the time training." Francesco's eyes narrowed.

"Hey! Night is an incredibly strong pokemon! Who are you to criticize?!" The Vaporeon let out an angry bark in agreement showing off sharp white teeth. But the response Tess gave was far from the desired one. She merely rolled her eyes and scoffed, waving a hand placating in his direction.

"I'm sure he is Frankie, I'm sure he is." She ignored his angry spluttering attempt to correct the accursed nickname. "In a battle against a normal trainer I'm sure Night would be a formidable opponent. But the fact of the matter is when it comes to water pokemon, I'M THE BEST THERE EVER IS!" She shouted a hand whipped out to point up at the sky. "NO ONE CAN HANDLE WATER POKEMON AS WELL AS ME!" The hand pointed to the sky shot down to point dramatically at the rather bewildered looking Francesco.

"I'VE TRAINED WATER POKEMON AND ONLY WATER POKEMON SINCE THE DAY I WAS GIVEN MY FIRST! SO WHEN IT COMES TO THEM I'M THE BE ALL END ALL TRAINER! THERE'S NO OTHER WATER TRAINER AS RUTHLESS AND POWERFUL AS ME!" Francesco couldn't decide on a course of action, he could A.) Make use of the time and attack, B.) Make like a leaf and leave or C.) hear out the rest of this crazy talk. Considering that the girl was effectively ranting to the sky, he could probably get away with both A and B. But the extremely insane glint in her eyes was cautioning him against A. She might just snap. Ditto for B. So it seemed like C it was.

"MITSY? WALLCE? JUAN? CRASHER WAKE? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH! AMETURS COMPARED TO ME! MERE AMETURS! I EAT DRINK AND _BREATH_ WATER POKEMON" Tess brought her hand down to rest on her hip, grinning dangerously as she eyed the half-drowned Francesco in the river across from her. "And now it's my turn to _really_ rip you a new one. Beat Nic!" The blue fish grunted under her feet. "DISCHARGE!"

_Alessandra watched in surprise as her whirlpool attack was frozen solid before it could hit the round tubby little pokemon. The now frozen attack shattered on the ground sending small shards of ice twinkling in the air. She blinked. Well that had been slightly unexpected, still Caboose was far too young to be very dangerous or strong. One good solid hit should knock him out. Keeping that in mind then:_

"_Water use crunch!" Water leapt forward, using the slickened down grass to add extra speed to his attack. The spacey blue target didn't even seem to realize the danger coming toward it at a breakneck pace, clapping his flippers happily. Alessandra did not expect the cute little thing to be able to move out of the way, however she was soon proven wrong._

"_Fissure Caboose!"_

"_WHAT?!"_

"ARE YOU INSANE?!" Francesco shouted desperately. "I'm in the water too!" Beat Nic paused as his trainer shifted on his head.

"Oh yeah." Tess said, tapping her finger against her chin. "I hadn't thought of that….what to do now…?" She looked down at Beat Nic who glanced up at her from the corner of one eye, pupil dilated. "Eh, doesn't matter. Carry on Beat!" Francesco's mouth dropped open as volts of electricity turned the river into a giant conductor, sparks leaping off the surface. Francesco had the time to think: _Oh shi-_ before the attack hit Night and by extension himself and everything went black.

_Alessandra watched in awe as the blue and tan spotted creature clapped his flippers and rolled on the ground. She watched with slight fear as the earth shook and then split wide open, the crevice headed toward her and her fast approaching Floatzel. The ground was shaking hard enough to almost knock her off her feet, and the wet grass that before had helped Water accelerate would now be a deterrent. He wouldn't be able to stop or serve out of the way of the giant fissure splitting the very ground apart. This attack would certainly be the end of the battle. Alessandra braced herself as the fissure shot forward and missed both her pokemon and herself by a good ten feet._

_She blinked at the large deep gash carved into the earth and looked back at Connor. Connor just shrugged as Water completed his graceful slide Crunch attack, biting down on the rolling pokemon with glowing purple fangs. A few minutes later and Caboose registered the attack. He squealed and immediately big fat tears began to well-up in his eyes. Water sat back on his haunches, feeling mildly confused and more than a bit guilty as the tiny pokemon wailed loudly as tears gushed from his eyes._

"_Water!" Alessandra scolded as she raced up next to the two pokemon. "You didn't have to attack him so hard! He's just a baby!" Water grumbled under his breath and scuffed the ground with a paw angrily. Caboose only howled louder, a small puddle of tears forming around his round body. Water clapped his paws over his sensitive ears, screwing his eyes shut and Alessandra soon followed suit as the wailing reached another decibel. Suddenly the crying was abruptly cut off. Alessandra opened her eyes and experimentally removed a hand from her ears, when she didn't hear anything she sighed and removed the other hand, nudging Water as she did so._

_Connor had picked the young squalling pokemon up and now it was nestled comfortably in his arms, sucking contentedly on a finger. Connor was rubbing soothing circles on the little creature's back with his free hand._

"_Okay, so maybe you're still just a weeee bit too young for this battling business." Caboose sighed tiredly around his makeshift pacifier. "Though if I didn't know better I'd say you were bred from a slowpoke or somethin'." Alessandra approached as quietly as she could so as not to startle and thus induce more unholy screams from the baby pokemon. Once she was certain that the young pokemon wasn't going to suddenly freak out she bowed quickly forcing Water to do the same. Connor raised an eyebrow._

"_I'm very sorry that Water hurt your pokemon so badly." She spoke from her bowed state._

"_Uhhh…that's okay? Never had anyone apologize for winning before. I shouldn't have sent him out anyway." Connor managed to extract and arm from around his pokemon to safely scratch at the back of his head. He grinned at Alessandra who grinned back. "You uh…wouldn't happen to know the way outta here right?" _

"Jeez Frankie wake up already. Gwad, it wasn't _that_ bad." Francesco let out a groan, forcing his eye-lids up. He was lying flat out on his back on the riverbank, a figure looming over him. He squinted against the bright sunlight, groaning again as he recognized the figure as Tess. He had been hoping that the spectacular loss had been just a dream but from the way Tess was grinning wildly at him that wasn't quite true. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, taking stock of his surroundings. He was indeed on the riverbank…dry and his bag was next to him, dry as well. He looked over at Tess, standing by the water's edge, her lanturn firing off the occasional shock in the water as his vaporeon, a little singed in spots, batted a paw at the large blue fish in between sparks. Tess looked back and then followed his eyes to his bag.

"Oh yeah, I had Beat Nic pick that, you and your vaporeon off the river bottom. And had another of my pokemon dry it out for you." Francesco nodded accepting that explanation before beginning the arduous task of getting to his feet. After several false starts, a few almost there's and much laughter from Tess, Francesco finally regained his footing. Tess surveyed his rather shaking and swaying figure as he called Night over returning the tired pokemon to its ball. "Sooooo…." She started. "Up for round two?" Francesco just gaped at her.

"NO! I don't have the time or the energy to go another round with you!" He shouted, turning around to begin the walk back to town. "I need to check and makes sure all my equipment still works."

"Fine fine. Be a party pooper." Tess mumbled to herself. She walked back over to the bridge, Beat Nic lazily swimming in circles in the water when a question occurred to her. "Hey! Frankie!" Francesco turned around irritably.

"IT's…you know what? I give up. What do you want?" Tess smiled sweetly.

"What Safari zone did you send your lady love to?" Francesco deflated slightly. She wouldn't let either subject drop.

"The one in Kanto." He jumped as Tess began to laugh. "What's so funny?" She waved a hand at him the other arm circled around her stomach as she laughed.

"Nothing nothing. Just a friend of mine is lost in there is all." Francesco paled.

"Oh god." He turned and began walking as fast as he could, almost sprinting, back down the dirt path leaving Tess to her laughter. Eventually the cackling had faded off into giggling and then stopped. Tess settled herself back on the bridge much as she had before Francesco interrupted her and resumed swinging her feet in the air, watching Beat Nic as he swam lazily around, twitching from the odd spark. All in all, a good distraction, now if only some young arrogant trainer that she could smack down came around, life would be good again.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Who's that pokemon: Dragonair

*See previous chapter Bombs Away for an explanation.

-Unlike Mike, Tess actually remembers most if not all of the people she meets.

-it's like a double battle that takes place in two different places AT THE SAME TIME HO-SHIZ! So did I pull it off or make a mess of it?

-How many people can guess who I named the mystery pokemon after? I'll give you a hint: He's blue.

-Alessandra and Francesco belong to Legendary Fairy. I apologize for almost killing/maiming them twice now. It's not like I set out with that goal in mind…it just happens! I swear!


	19. Request Battle: Ash and Ritchie rematch

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Another look into the anime characters, this time without any of mine. Sorry for those of you who don't like the anime.

* * *

"Welcome ladies, gentlemen and trainers! It's time for the fifth match of the annual Indigo Plateau competition!" The Announcer spread one hand out. "And this match is between two previous Indigo Plateau challengers! Please welcome Ash Ketchum and Ritchie Rowan!" The announcer waited patiently for the crowd to calm down and the two challengers to walk to their places. Ash and Ritchie approached their spots waving at the people they knew in the crowd.

"Nice to see you again Ash!" Ritchie called from his side of the arena, waving one hand. Ash grinned widely and waved back as Pikachu called out from his spot on Ash's shoulder. "And you too pikachu!"

"It's great to see you too Ritchie! Let's give it our best!" Ritchie smiled and gave him a thumbs up. The announcer after being sure of having their attention began speaking again.

"This is a three on three pokemon battle, once a pokemon is either switched out or deemed unable to battle by the judge it is eliminated. The winner of this match will be determined by the number of remaining pokemon and the trainer will continue on in the tournament. Are the battlers ready?" At this both Ash and Ritchie nodded at the judge, pokeballs already in hand, Pikachu jumped down from his shoulder perch to give his trainer more mobility. "Good. Then…BEGIN!" The announcer brought his arms down and both trainers took this as the signal to go.

"Go Wartortle!" A medium height indigo blue turtle pokemon appeared, stretching his clawed hands and ready to fight.

"Happy I chose you!" The red light from the pokeball formed into a large white and black winged pokemon. Ash smiled, lifting a hand to push back his cap before calling over to his friend.

"Gonna make this just the same as last time?" Ritchie grinned nodding his head in acknowledgement.

"Let's see if you can command that Charizard of yours this time!"

"Just you watch! Wartortle let's start off with hydro pump!" The wartortle gathered himself up with a deep breath and released a powerful jet stream of water from his mouth. The audience cheered with excitement that such a powerful move executed so beautifully was the opening attack. Ritchie however was ready with a quick strategic counter.

"Happy, fly above that and use sleep powder!" He ordered his pokemon. Ash smirked as the giant bug type gained altitude and flapping its wings unleashed a cloud of blue pollen over the opposing pokemon. Several audience members clapped at such quick maneuvering.

"That won't work a second time Ritchie! Wartortle jump up and rapid spin!" The bright blue pollen was viciously cut through as the wartortle flung himself into the air, disappearing into his shell as it began to twirl like a top, easily striking the hovering enemy dead center. Ritchie only clapped his hands tamely.

"Nice one! But can you stand up to this?" He shouted over the cheering stands as Wartortle dropped back to the arena to land on his feet, the severely winded bug type almost hitting the ground but catching itself at the last second, gamely flapping its wings to stay in the air a few feet off the ground. "Giga drain!" Happy was surrounded by a green aura that struck out and latched onto the Wartortle. Ash winced as the attack began to drain his pokemon, he knew wartortle was at a severe type disadvantage, but hopefully his pokemon would be able to hold on long enough to force through another attack, he just needed to ramp up his defense a little and he knew the perfect move for that.

"Hang in there Wartortle! Use withdraw!" The water pokemon slipped back into his shell, but the green glow hardly vanished.

"Keep it up Happy! We have the advantage here!" Happy answered with a trill, narrowing its large red eyes and intensifying the giga drain. The wartortle shell shuddered as the last dredges of energy were sapped, Wartortle himself flopping out clearly exhausted. The judge raised the green flag.

"Wartortle is unable to battle! Victory goes to Happy and Ritchie!" Ash recalled his Wartortle as Happy twirled around in the air, exulting over its victory and the approving cries from the spectators.

"Good try Wartortle, Pikachu! You're up! Start things out with volt tackle!" The bright yellow pokemon darted onto the field, sparks flickering from his cheeks to engulf his body as he dashed toward the opposing pokemon.

"Happy, evade the attack!" Ritchie called out, but Happy was still winded from the previous rapid spin attack, managing only to stay partially out of the line of fire. Happy slipped to the side and though Pikachu missed hitting the purple and blue bug straight on the electric currents surrounding the mouse type still caused a fair amount of damage. A loud cheer came up on all sides at the fast-paced play.

"Try thunderbolt Pikachu, you've almost won!" Pikachu landed and immediately spun around, lashing out with a powerful bolt of lightning.

"Gust now!" The large black and white wings flapped madly releasing gale-force winds even as Happy was shocked severely by the thunderbolt. Pikachu gripped the ground tightly as the powerful winds roared around him before he was swept up by the gust attack and roughly slammed into the ground. Pikachu hopped back onto his feet shaking himself and settling into his battle stance, though Happy had not even twitched from where he had fallen.

"Happy is unable to battle, Ash is the winner!" Again the audience stamped and clapped at the well fought battle. Ritchie muttered words of praise to Happy as he recalled the fallen pokemon and released his next one.

"Zippo flamethrower!" The large orange Charizard broke free from the red release beam blasting off a powerful stream of fire right away.

"Pikachu look out!" The electric type barely had time to dodge to the side, the fire passing so close as to singe his fur. Ritchie pointed a finger across to Ash.

"Your Pikachu is just as fast as I remember him being, maybe even faster." Ash grinned, scratching at the back of his head. "But I've been training Zippo up! Keep shooting flamethrowers Zippo! Tire that Pikachu out!" Zippo growled in agreement, opening his maw and letting out another blast of fire.

"Agility Pikachu! Try to keep ahead of those flamethrowers!" Pikachu immediately began to dodge and dance around the numerous jets of flame that kept coming at him. "Use thunderbolt when you get close enough!" A quick nod showed that Pikachu understood the order and using his jumps and dives, started making his way toward the winged fire type. Ritchie narrowed his eyes.

"Wait for it Zippo, just wait, let him come closer." Pikachu, considering himself close enough, broke from dodging and raced at Zippo, letting off a powerful thunderbolt that shocked Zippo badly. Ritchie was already snapping into action. "Now use slash and flamethrower Zippo!" The large pokemon pushed through the pain of the electrical attack and caught Pikachu with a quick slash, causing the smaller pokemon to tumble backwards.

"Pikachu!" But Zippo wasn't quite done, now that Pikachu was tumbling, he had no way to dodge the next flamethrower that hit the yellow mouse dead on, causing him screech in pain as the fire engulfed him. "Pikachu! Return!" Ash quickly recalled Pikachu before the worst of the flamethrower attack could hit. "You did good there buddy." Ash said to the pokeball as the judge declared Ritchie the winner. "Now Charizard! It's up to you!"

Ritchie winced as the large fire type let out a roar upon its release, showing probably more fang than was entirely necessary, he caught the ref's eyes and made the motion for a time out. Now that he had some time Ritchie quickly weighed the battle in his head. Ash's Charizard was tough and powerful, he knew that, Zippo was tough too, but Zippo had taken a severely hard hit with that thunder bolt on top of continuous flamethrowers and pushing himself hard in the last few moments of the match. Ritchie's Charizard was breathing heavily and singed in several places. Ritchie sighed, his mind made up.

"You ready Ritchie?!" Ash called from across the field, his Charizard thumped its tail and growled ominously. Ritchie grinned.

"Sure am!" He waited a moment for the ref to call time in before making his move. "Good job Zippo! Return!" Zippo disappeared into his pokeball as Ritchie flung out another one. "Go Sparky!" The Pikachu appeared on the field in a battle ready position, cherry-red cheeks sparking with electricity. "Use thunderbolt!"

The Pikachu crouched and released the electrical charge into the air. The yellow bolt rushed toward the Charizard leaving the smell of ozone in its wake.

"Charizard use fly to get out of the way!" Charizard leapt into the air barely missing the powerfully charged bolt of electricity. "Now grab Sparky and use seismic toss!" As the Charizard swooped low to snatch the smaller pokemon, Ritchie snapped out orders.

"Sparky, agility! Don't let him catch you!" With a sharp nod, the yellow mouse shot off, streaking around the arena, making it nigh impossible for the larger and slower pokemon to snatch him. "Turn that agility into quick attack!" Sparky suddenly shifted in his mad sprint and instead of running away from Charizard ran right at him, dodging from side to side until he was right under the orange dragon, the Pikachu rammed himself head-first into the bigger pokemon's stomach. Charizard surprised by the move, landed heavily on his feet, stumbling backwards. But Ash wasn't just about to let Ritchie follow that up with another thunderbolt attack.

"Charizard, skull bash!" Charizard still stumbling backwards, caught himself and use the momentum to slam his head forward and down.

"Watch out Sparky!" But the Pikachu was slightly dizzy from the powerful quick-attack and so did not recover fast enough to move. Charizard slammed his down on Sparky, causing the small rodent to screech in pain. "We can still turn this around! Thunderbolt Sparky!"

"Charizard get out of there!" Charizard unfortunately was caught when Sparky released the thunderbolt attack, for Sparky had managed to grab onto the pokemon's head with his paws, ensuring that even if Charizard tried to run, he would bring Sparky with him. Charizard roared with pain and whipped his head around, Sparky desperately clinging to him, his grip was weak to begin with though and in no time the Charizard had managed to send him flying. The Pikachu bounced once or twice and skidded to a stop, before pulling himself up on all four paws, eyes narrowed into slits and cheeks sparking dangerously. Charizard shook himself all over and then hunched down, ready for the next command. "You're doing good Charizard! Seismic toss should finish this!"

"Sparky agility and quick attack again!" This time as Sparky darted out of reach and dashed back toward him, the Charizard dug his clawed feet into the ground, wings opening slightly, eyes watching the pikachu's approach carefully. This time when Sparky leapt into the air to complete his quick attack, Chairzard was ready, his short arms shot out and wrapped his claws around the small rodents body. The Pikachu secure in his grasp, the Charizard immediately took to the air, moving in a graceful flip to build up speed he shot back down to the earth, wings folded against his body to maximize speed. Sparky tried to gather himself for another thunderbolt, but by the time he was ready, Charizard was already slamming him into the ground.

The force of the seismic toss left a small crater in the arena floor, a small crater with Sparky lying at the bottom. Charizard landed back in front of Ash as Ritchie quickly recalled the un-moving Sparky. The ref raised the flag in Ash's favor.

"And the winner of the fifth match with Charizard is Ash from Pellet Town!" As the crowd cheered loudly, Ash and Ritchie shook hands, complimenting each other on the battle and wishing good luck for the coming year.

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Who's that Pokemon? Caboose is a spheal and he's named after Caboose from the popular web series Red vs. Blue.

-The mystery pokemon here should be really, really easy to guess. I hate that none of Ash's pokemon have nicknames. Seriously.

-Since there is no canon reason why squirtle isn't evolved I had him go for it.

- Request Battle from Fire Drastar for a re-match of Ash and Ritchie's tournament battle re-done with Charizard listening to Ash. So I used the same line-up from the episode but I snuck in some evolved forms. Hope you like!

-I won't be updating on a regular schedule anymore. My summer has exploded with work, so instead every month I will post the reworked chapters that I do have and whatever new chapters I have finished. Sorry guys.


	20. Burn Baby, Burn

Disclaimer: Pokémon does not belong to me it belongs to the geniuses at Nintendo.

Okay, so I lied, the return of our favorite trio will be set for chapter 22…maybe…possibly

And also, Happy early Christmas or whatever winter holiday you celebrate.

* * *

Kim brushed her light brown bangs out of her eyes, tilting the cowboy hat back from her forehead, she reached down a hand and scratched at the base of her pokemon, Old Lu's head horns. He heaved a contented sigh. A light breeze blew around her, stirring the grass and causing the leaves in the trees to rustle. She could hear the occasional hoof stamp and whinny from her family's barn to her right, where all of the prize Rapidash were stabled at night. Her own Rapidash, Brush, was turned loose in a paddock not far from the porch she stood on, if Kim were to walk to the right end and lean over the railing she would be able to see her pokemon's bright flames as the Rapidash dozed peacefully under the willow tree bordering one end.

Kim cast an eye on the dark sky. It was the night of the new moon so only the stars were visible. She yawned, placing her hands on her hips and cracking her back. When she opened her eyes she squinted and frowned, from where she stood on her porch she could see the dozens of flickering lights that belonged to her family's breeding ponyta herd, put up for the night in one of the lower pastures. But the orange and yellow flames were not staying in one general area, as they would if the herd was resting, they were moving erratically around and some were clumping near the far edge of the pasture. Normally Kim would assume that a wild pokemon had startled the herd, as had often happened, but the herd was not calming down and the edge of the pasture that the ponyta were bunching at, was bordered by the trees and a well hidden dirt road. Kim's eyes narrowed as she caught a faint shout and the clang of metal on metal. At her feet, Old Lu was shifting from paw to paw angrily, making threatening growls in the back of his throat. Hustlers then, Kim concluded, there were no steel pokemon in the area and Lu would have gone tearing down there, to scare off any intruding pokes, not wait here for her command.

Kim clenched a fist as she considered her next course of action. With her mother, father and older brother gone to a breeding contest in the next town over, only she and her little brother were left behind to deal with this problem. And she was not letting a bunch of lazy-ass hustlers steal the pokemon in her family's care, not on her watch! Kim stomped over to the door leading inside the house and wrenched it open.

"Samuel!" She called into the house, taking care that while her voice was loud it would not be heard by the hustlers. "Samuel Ashby, get over here right now!" A boy ten to twelve years of age jogged into the living room and stopped dead at the sight of his sister's face. "There're hustlers down in the pasture, call Officer Jenny and tell 'er to get out here as fast as she can, then call Dad and let him know what's happenin'. Understood?" Samuel resembled a bobble-head as he nodded quickly. "Good. I'm gonna go slow 'em down some, you stay here and man the phones!" She shouted as she let the door swing close, already rushing across the porch. Samuel leapt for the phone and hastily dialed the police number as the door banged shut.

"Get Devious, Lu!" Kim hissed as she jumped off the porch, the black pokemon immediately followed after her, powerful legs propelling him in front of her and as she began running down the dirt path to the distant pasture, he cut across, vanishing around the barn. Kim placed two fingers in her mouth and gave a shrill whistle. From behind her came the sound of steady hoof beats as Brush answered the call, easily jumping the paddock fence and cantering level with Kim. Bareback mounts were annoying, especially when both parties were on the move but Kim managed to scramble aboard however ungracefully and the two were off. From around the barn came Old Lu's daughter, Devious and Old Lu himself, flat out running, paws stretching out, they quickly fell in alongside Brush, panting happily at the chance of a battle.

The lead hustler grinned, snapping out another set of orders to his well trained Growlithe. He and his partner had trained four of the puppy pokemon to be excellent herders. Growlithe worked as a team, were used to herding larger animals and, most importantly, were fire types. The open flames of the ponyta were not a deterrent to the pokemon. A few well placed roar attacks had the herd in chaos, and the Growlithe were easily directing the skittish creatures, with bites and leers, into the large trailer parked in the cover of the trees.

Really this couldn't be any easier. With the owners and eldest son out for the weekend at a competition, the time was ripe for a bit of hustling. Ashby Rapidash were in high demand because of their superior speed and the fact that back in the day, Grandfather Ashby had bred the move, flamewheel, into the line. Unfortunately for him and his buddy, the real prize, the Rapidash, were kept up close to the house. And while the two brats of the family wouldn't be any real trouble, it would be quite easy for them to call the authorities. Luckily, the breeding ponyta were kept further away from the house. And even though the ponyta were not worth as much as their fully evolved forms, they would still turn a tidy profit on the black market. At this point, even if the kids called the police, the hustlers could still make off with more than half the herd.

"Another roar, boy." He casually ordered. "Let's wrap this up." The bright orange pokemon opened his mouth to let out another roar, when a huge black and silver blur knocked into him, sending the Growlithe flying. The downed Growlithe struggled to his feet, snarling at the new threat, a larger horned pokemon, which was snarling back. The Hustler frowned. But had no time to react as a large flaming Rapidash leapt the fence into the pen, another of the black and silver hounds at its heels.

"Devious! Thunder fang!" The first pokemon leapt at his Growlithe again, this time with sparks of electricity leaking from its jaws. "Old Lu, faint attack!" Old Lu, dashed at the second Growlithe, dodging nimbly from side to side, making it impossible for his intended target to estimate where his attack would come from. The girl riding on the Rapidash's back dropped off quickly. "Stomp Brush!" The equine raised herself up on her hind legs, and then shot toward the third Growlithe with the speed of a striking snake. The lead hustler was a bit quicker on the up-take then his partner.

"Dodge Mesh! Caron use take down!" The third Growlithe, alerted by the trainer, threw herself to the side, narrowly missing the diamond-hard hooves that hit the earth, right where she had been standing. The force was strong enough that if Brush had hit the Growlithe, she would have broken the pokemon's spine. The fourth Growlithe charged at Old Lu, slamming into the attacking duel type before he could complete his faint attack. The force of Caron's take down attack knocked himself back as well, but saved the second Growlithe from serious harm. However, Devious's thunder fang hit hard and the Growlithe, already weak from the first attack, was knocked unconscious.

"Give it up little girl." The second hustler snarled, as the Growlithe was returned. He pulled a greatball off of his belt, his partner mimicking his movement, and cracking it open in the next moment. "You don't have the fire power to beat us." Kim smirked grimly; fully aware that the only chance she had against three Growlithe and two unknowns was the chance to slow them down until Officer Jenny arrived.

"Lucky me then. _Fire_ power's all I got! Brush agility flame wheel! Old Lu and Devious, show 'em how we deal with hustlers!" Brush charged toward the first flash of red, her speed and flames turning her into an arrow of fire. The red energies solidified into an electabuzz and a Pidgeot. The Pidgeot lifted off into the sky immediately, while the unfortunate electabuzz took the full hit of Brush's flame-wheel. Devious and Old Lu darted at the remaining Growlithe, jaws snapping and salvia flying through the air as two different canine species collided.

"Electabuzz thunder punch!" Brush managed to escape the worst of the damage by ducking quickly to the side, cantering off in a wide arc to come back with another flame-wheel. Kim spared a quick second to check on Old Lu and Devious. The five canine Pokémon were well-engaged. The three Growlithe, trying to use numbers and herding techniques to corner the two attacking Pokémon, while Old Lu and Devious were thwarting their attempts, trying to crush the Growlithe with superior size and fighting ability. The battle was heated, with flames flickering from the corners of snapping jaws and sparks jumping as blunt claws struck bone horns. Kim snapped her attention back to the main fight as Brush let out a shriek.

"Brush!" The electabuzz had gotten another painful flame wheel, but as Brush had been circling back to attack again, the Pidgeot had dropped from the sky and scored a direct sky attack. Raking its claws deeply into Brush's back. Brush had shrieked and flared her body flames brighter on instinct. Burning the Pidgeot's talons and forcing it to let go. "Brush calm down! You need to pace yourself or you won't last!" Kim called out desperately but the rapidash paid no heed, screaming in fury as her flames grew brighter. The head hustler laughed.

"Like you had a chance, you're out numbered." He said smugly, folding his arms across his chest. The hustler's statement was further accented by a terrible shriek. Kim whipped around, in the corner; two of the Growlithe had managed to break through Old Lu's defenses and had dragged him to the ground. Devious was injured and penned back by the third Growlithe, she howled in rage. White teeth flashed while growls and angry snarls rippled through the air. As the two species continued to clash and Old Lu tried desperately to fight off his attackers.

"Lu!" Kim shouted, she started to run toward the tangle of black and orange fur but a scream from Brush froze her in her tracks. The electabuzz had sent out a strong thunderbolt and with the fiery Pokémon dazed from the attack, the Pidgeot had followed through and landed a powerful wing attack. Brush was now reeling from the hits and her flames were fading down. Kim didn't know what to do. Her Pokémon were out-numbered and she couldn't split her attention any further. If she tried to help Old Lu, Brush would be seriously hurt, but if she continued to coach Brush, Old Lu might not pull through. She was stuck and she knew it, worse _they_ knew it too, if the annoying laughs coming from the hustlers were any indication. Kim clenched her hands into fists, there had to be something she could do, some angle she hadn't found yet, but she just couldn't think of one.

"Alright Girlie, it's been fun playing with you, but now we have to go." The second hustler laughed, snapping his fingers. "Let's finish this." Before he could utter another command the shrill sound of a whistle cut through the air.

"Arcanine, extreme speed! Growlithe use crunch and takedowns!" A large orange and black striped blur flew over the fence and slammed into the yellow electabuzz, sending it flying, resolving into a majestic looking Arcanine. Three Growlithe dashed under the fence rails and joined the fray, one raced to help Devious, while two leapt to defend Old Lu. The last Growlithe sat next to its trainer's feet and began tracking the flying Pidgeot with its eyes. "Attention criminals! This is Officer Jenny. You are both under arrest, please return your Pokémon and get on the ground!"

The lead hustler snarled, just what they needed. Mere minutes from closing the deal and making off with the prize and freakin' officer Jenny had to go and crash their party. He mentally weighed the options up in his head: Pidgeot was perfectly fine and able to battle, the Growlithe…not so much and his partner's electabuzz had just about had it as well. Time to cut his losses and run with what he had, which at this point boiled down to his Pidgeot and the one fainted Growlithe. But faced with prison time, making off with less pokemon then he had come in with wasn't too bad an outcome. He snapped out orders to his remaining Growlithe to keep the new comers as busy as possible, making eye contact and nodding to his partner, he prepared to order Pidgeot to get them both to safety as the electabuzz sluggishly engaged the Arcanine in battle.

Unfortunately for him, Officer Jenny was well aware of his plans to run, and she wasn't about to let him get away. Hustlers could not and would not be tolerated and she was determined to make an example of them. She followed the arching decent of the leader's Pidgeot, waiting for the right moment to strike. Finally the Pidgeot placed itself perfectly in line for a crippling assault.

"Now Growlithe!" Officer Jenny shouted. The Growlithe that had remained by her feet had also been tracking the Pidgeot and at the Officer's command, let loose an incredibly strong fire blast. The burning star shape flashed across the night sky and hit the Pidgeot, who had no room to maneuver, directly in the side. The attack scorched the giant bird's right wing and side, causing it to plow into the ground, where it weakly tried to struggle to its feet. But even after settling weakly on it talons, the Pidgeot was clearly unable to take to the sky, with severe burns all along its wing and side. The hustlers' air escape route disabled, they tried to make a mad dash to the truck, but were stopped as the heavy body of the electabuzz was thrown at their feet, the large and fierce looking Arcanine, backed by at least two police Growlithe, blocked their way.

As the blue and red flashing lights of squad cars filled the night sky, the two hustlers were forced to their knees, hands cuffed behind their heads and roughly forced into the back of the cars. Their pokemon had been recalled to their respective pokeballs, and were slated to be evaluated and retrained or released depending on the results. Kim grimly sprayed her three fighters with some of the hyper potions her family kept an ample supply of on hand. All three thoroughly exhausted by their battles. Brush's head had been hanging so close to the ground, her nose was brushing the green stalks of grass that hadn't been burnt to cinders in the fight, Old Lu was sporting several deep bite and scratch marks and Devious was clearly favoring her front leg, refusing to walk on it at all. Kim sighed, all three pokemon would need to spend some time in the pokemon center, but first the herd of ponyta had to be secured and checked over for injuries as well. The hyper potions would be able to tide her three pokemon over until she could rush them to Nurse Joy.

Speaking of, Officer Jenny had radioed the good Nurse in as soon as the battle had halted and the red-head had driven over in the pokemon center's ambulance with two of the staff chansey to help sort through the herd and see to the wounded battlers, so Kim's pokemon wouldn't have long to wait at all until their wounds were seen to. In fact she had only a twenty minute wait until she handed her pokeballs over to a chansey nurse and could get started sorting through the still spooked herd.

Samuel had hurried down to the paddock once he had seen the police cars and had already gotten to work counting heads in the trailer, to make sure there were not any escaped ponyta wandering the fields. He had brought his own herding pokemon, Rufus and Charlie, with. So the process went smoother then Kim had anticipated, being that Rufus and Charlie were still young and un-evolved, but both proved to be more than capable of herding the still slightly spooked ponyta out of the trailer and separating the ones that had injuries from those still healthy.

Before long everything was back in its place, the herd had been moved to a pasture closer to the house for the night, the rapidash in the barn had been counted and checked on, Kim's pokemon had been returned to her, with orders to keep Devious out of battles and work for at least a month, Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy had bidden them both goodnight, with promises to check back in, for nurse Joy, in the morning and for Officer Jenny, periodically throughout the night and Officer Jenny had also left three of the station's Growlithe behind as extra protection. Kim and Samuel had called and reassured their parents and brother of the situation, but their father and mother were already headed back, to arrive in the morning, leaving their brother behind to finish the showing and get home as quickly as possible.

Kim breathed a sigh of relief as she finally hung up the phone. Her family had dealt with hustlers and poachers many times before, but this was the first time that Kim had had to face them all on her own. Usually she was backing up her big brother or father or mother, or was up at the house dialing the police number. This time she had been right in the middle of the fight, on her own. She knew she had done well, as well as she could have done under the circumstances, but she still had lots of practice ahead of her. She couldn't afford to be overwhelmed like that again. She had been put in a position where she had to choose between her pokemon and she had almost frozen trying to think of something instead of reacting. She would need a plan for the next time something like this happened.

"'Ey Kim?" She was snapped out of her thoughts by her brother's questioning voice.

"Aye?" Samuel was standing in the kitchen doorway, shyly gripping the doorframe with his hands, Rufus and Charlie leaning against his legs, looking equally as timid as their master.

"I can't sleep, can we watch movies instead?" Kim walked over to him, picking him up under his arms and rubbing her nose against his.

"Course we can squirt." She said, setting him on the ground and rubbing his head. "Ya did good tonight." Samuel grinned wide.

"Ya did good too big sis."

* * *

Author's Notes:

-Who's that Pokemon: Happy is a butterfree.

-Kim is one of the first characters I came up with, she actually belongs to a full _real plot driven_ story…that may or may not show up. So enjoy her.


End file.
